Square based prism general rule

ashclouded
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Homework Statement


See attached picture

Homework Equations



For any rectangular prism, the formulas are the following:

Surface Area = 2(lw + wh + hl); l is length, w is width, and h is height.

Volume = lwh; l is length, w is width, and h is height.

For a square-based prism, the formulas are simplified into the following:

Surface Area = 2(s^2 + 2sh); s is side of square face and h is height.

Volume = s^2h; s is side of square face and h is height.

The Attempt at a Solution


I'm not sure how to start the question at all[/B]
 

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You can't use a formula for a specific subgroup (rectangular prisms) for your square-based prisms ! The latter are more general than just rectangular.

Is there anything you did or found in question 2 that is relevant for the current exercise ?
 
I don't have the question and answe on me but I will post it tomorrow
Thanks for replying, I've no idea how to do this and it's bugging me
 
Well, some good spirit warned you (for obvious reasons), but also moved to the calculus part of PF. Why would that be ?
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
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