11-4 Volumes of Prisms and Cylinders

Objective

To find the volume of a prism and the volume of a cylinder

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In the Solve It, you determined the volume of a box by finding how many 1 cm-by-1 cm-by-1 cm cubes the box holds.

Volume is the space that a figure occupies. It is measured in cubic units such as cubic inches  ( in . 3 ) ,  cubic feet  ( f t 3 ) ,  or cubic centimeters  ( cm 3 ) . cubicinches . open in , . cubed . close comma . cubicfeet . open f , t cubed , close comma . orcubiccentimeters . open , cm cubed , close .  The volume V of a cube is the cube of the length of its edge e, or V = e 3 . v equals . e cubed , .

Essential Understanding You can find the volume of a prism or a cylinder when you know its height and the area of its base.

Both stacks of paper below contain the same number of sheets.

The first stack forms an oblique prism. The second forms a right prism. The stacks have the same height. The area of every cross section parallel to a base is the area of one sheet of paper. The stacks have the same volume. These stacks illustrate the following principle.

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