A prism is a special case of a general notion of cylinder.

General, right and uniform prisms

A right prism is a prism in which the joining edges and faces are perpendicular to the base faces. This applies if the joining faces are rectangular. If the joining edges and faces are not perpendicular to the base faces, it is called an oblique prism.

In the case of a rectangular or square prism there may be ambiguity because some texts may mean a right rectangular-sided prism and a right square-sided prism.

The term uniform prism can be used for a right prism with square sides since such prisms are in the set of uniform polyhedra.

An n-prism, made of regular polygons ends and rectangle sides approaches a cylindrical solid as n approaches infinity.

Right prisms with regular bases and equal edge lengths form one of the two infinite series of semiregular polyhedra, the other series being the antiprisms.

The dual of a right prism is a bipyramid.

A parallelepiped is a prism of which the base is a parallelogram, or equivalently a polyhedron with 6 faces which are all parallelograms.

A right rectangular prism is also called a cuboid, or informally a rectangular box. A right square prism is simply a square box, and may also be called a square cuboid.

An equilateral square prism is simply a cube.

Area and volume

The volume of a prism is the product of the [area] of the base and the distance between the two base faces, or the height (in the case of a non-right prism, note that this means the perpendicular distance).

Symmetry

The symmetry group of a right n-sided prism with regular base is D_nh of order 4n, except in the case of a cube, which has the larger symmetry group O_h of order 48, which has three versions of D_4h as subgroups. The rotation group is D_n of order 2n, except in the case of a cube, which has the larger symmetry group O of order 24, which has three versions of D₄ as subgroups.

The symmetry group D_nh contains inversion iff n is even.

Prismatic polytope

A prismatic polytope is a dimensional generalization of a prism. An n-dimensional prismatic polytope is constructed from 2 (n-1)-dimensional polytopes, translated into the next dimension.

The prismatic n-polytope elements are doubled from the (n-1)-polytope elements and then creating new elements from the next lower element.

Take an n-polytope with f_i i-face elements (i=0..n). Its (n+1)-polytope prism will have 2*f_i+f_i-1 i-face elements. (With f_-1=0, f_n=1.)

By dimension:

• Take a polygon with n vertices, n edges. Its prism has 2n vertices, 2n+n edges, and 2+n faces.
• Take a polyhedron with v vertices, e edges, and f faces. Its prism has 2v vertices, 2e+v edges, 2f+e faces, and 2+f cells.
• Take a polychoron with v vertices, e edges, f faces and c cells. Its prism has 2v vertices, 2e+v edges, 2f+e faces, and 2c+f cells, and 2+c hypercells.

Uniform prismatic polytope

A regular n-polytope represented by Schläfli symbol {p,q,...t} can form a uniform prismatic (n+1)-polytope represented by a Cartesian product of two Schläfli symbols: {p,q,...t}x{}.

By dimension:

• A 0-polytopic prism is a line segment, represented by an empty Schläfli symbol {}.
• A 1-polytopic prism is a rectangle, made from two translated line segments. It is represented as the product Schläfli symbol {}x{}. If it is square, symmetry can be reduced it: {}x{} = {4}.
• Example: Square, {}x{}, two parallel line segments, connected by two line segment sides.
• A polygonal prism is a 3-dimensional prism made from two translated polygons connected by rectangles. A regular polygon {p} can construct a uniform n-gonal prism represented by the product {p}x{}. If p=4, with square sides symmetry it becomes a cube: {2}x{} = {4,3}.
• Example: Pentagonal prism, {5}x{}, two parallel pentagons connected by 5 rectangular sides.
• A polyhedral prism is a 4-dimensional prism made from two translated polyhedra connected by 3-dimensional prism cells. A regular polyhedron {p,q} can construct the uniform polychoric prism, represented by the product {p,q}x{}. If the polyhedron is a cube, and the sides are cubes, it becomes a tesseract: {4,3}x{} = {4,3,3}.
• Example: Dodecahedral prism, {5,3}x{}, two parallel dodecahedra connected by 12 pentagonal prism sides.
• ...

Higher order prismatic polytopes also exist as Cartesian products of any two polytopes. The dimension of a polytope is the product of the dimensions of the elements. The first example of these exist in 4-dimensional space are called duoprisms as the product of two polygons. Regular duoprisms are represented as {p}x{q}.

See also

• Prismatic uniform polyhedron.
• Cylinder (geometry)
• Apeirogonal prism

External links

• Nonconvex Prisms and Antiprisms
• Surface Area MATHguide
• Volume MATHguide
• Paper models of prisms and antiprisms Free nets of prisms and antiprisms
• Paper models of prisms and antiprisms Using nets generated by Stella.
• Stella: Polyhedron Navigator: Software used to create the 3D and 4D images on this page.