- Pyramid (geometry)
:"This article is about the polyhedron pyramid (a 3-dimensional shape); for other versions including architectural Pyramids, see
Pyramid (disambiguation) ."An "n"-sided pyramid is apolyhedron formed by connecting an "n"-sidedpolygon al base and a point, called the apex, by "n"triangular faces ("n" ≥ 3). In other words, it is aconic solid with polygonal base.When unspecified, the base is usually assumed to be square. For a triangular pyramid each face can serve as base, with the opposite vertex as apex. The regular
tetrahedron , one of thePlatonic solid s, is a triangular pyramid all of whose faces areequilateral triangle s. Besides the triangular pyramid, only the square and pentagonal pyramids can be composed of equilateral triangles, and in that case they areJohnson solid s. All pyramids are self-dual.Pyramids are a subclass of the
prismatoid s. The 1-skeleton of pyramid is awheel graph .Volume
The
volume of a pyramid is where "B" is the area of the base and "h" the height from the base to the apex. This works for any location of the apex, provided that "h" is measured as theperpendicular distance from the plane which contains the base.This can be proven using calculus::It can be proved using similarity that the dimensions of a cross section parallel to the base increase linearly from the apex to the base. Then, the cross section at any height "y" is the base scaled by a factor of , where "h" is the height from the base to the apex. Since the area of any shape is multiplied by the square of the shape's scaling factor, the area of a cross section at height "y" is .:The volume is given by the integral
(Trivially, the volume of a square-based pyramid with an apex half the height of its base can be seen to correspond to one sixth of a cube formed by fitting six such pyramids (in opposite pairs) about a center. Since the "base times height" then corresponds to one half of the cube's volume it is therefore three times the volume of the pyramid and the factor of one-third follows.)
Surface area
The surface
area of a regular pyramid is where is the area of the base, "p" is the perimeter of the base, and "s" is the slant height along the bisector of a face (ie the length from the midpoint of any edge of the base to the apex).Pyramids with regular polygon faces
If all faces are
regular polygon s, the pyramid base can be a regular polygon of 3-, 4- or 5-sided:ee also
*
Bipyramid
*Cone (geometry)
*Trigonal pyramid (chemistry) External links
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* [http://www.mathconsult.ch/showroom/unipoly/ The Uniform Polyhedra]
* [http://www.slyman.org/right_projects_math.php Angle between surfaces of a pyramid (general analytical solution), Pyramid dimensioning calculator] at [http://www.slyman.org/ www.slyman.org]
* [http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/vp.html Virtual Reality Polyhedra] The Encyclopedia of Polyhedra
**VRML models [http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/alphabetic-list.html (George Hart)] [http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/vrml/tetrahedron.wrl <3>] [http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/vrml/square_pyramid_(J1).wrl <4>] [http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/vrml/pentagonal_pyramid_(J2).wrl <5>]
* [http://www.korthalsaltes.com/special_pyramids.htm Paper models of pyramids]
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