![Prisma hexagonal 3D](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Prisma_hexagonal_3D.stl)
In
geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
, the hexagonal prism is a
prism
Prism usually refers to:
* Prism (optics), a transparent optical component with flat surfaces that refract light
* Prism (geometry), a kind of polyhedron
Prism may also refer to:
Science and mathematics
* Prism (geology), a type of sedimentary ...
with
hexagon
In geometry, a hexagon (from Ancient Greek, Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple polygon, simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°.
Regular hexa ...
al base. Prisms are
polyhedron
In geometry, a polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices.
A convex polyhedron is the convex hull of finitely many points, not all on th ...
s; this polyhedron has 8
faces
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affe ...
, 18
edges, and 12
vertices.
[.]
Since it has 8 faces, it is an
octahedron
In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...
. However, the term ''octahedron'' is primarily used to refer to the ''regular octahedron'', which has eight triangular faces. Because of the ambiguity of the term ''octahedron'' and tilarity of the various eight-sided figures, the term is rarely used without clarification.
Before sharpening, many
pencil
A pencil () is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage, and keeps it from marking the user's hand.
Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail ...
s take the shape of a long hexagonal prism.
As a semiregular (or uniform) polyhedron
If faces are all regular, the hexagonal prism is a
semiregular polyhedron
In geometry, the term semiregular polyhedron (or semiregular polytope) is used variously by different authors.
Definitions
In its original definition, it is a polyhedron with regular polygonal faces, and a symmetry group which is transitive on ...
, more generally, a
uniform polyhedron
In geometry, a uniform polyhedron has regular polygons as faces and is vertex-transitive (i.e., there is an isometry mapping any vertex onto any other). It follows that all vertices are congruent.
Uniform polyhedra may be regular (if also fa ...
, and the fourth in an infinite set of prisms formed by square sides and two regular polygon caps. It can be seen as a
truncated hexagonal hosohedron
In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°.
Regular hexagon
A '' regular hexagon'' has ...
, represented by
Schläfli symbol
In geometry, the Schläfli symbol is a notation of the form \ that defines regular polytopes and tessellations.
The Schläfli symbol is named after the 19th-century Swiss mathematician Ludwig Schläfli, who generalized Euclidean geometry to more ...
t. Alternately it can be seen as the
Cartesian product
In mathematics, specifically set theory, the Cartesian product of two sets ''A'' and ''B'', denoted ''A''×''B'', is the set of all ordered pairs where ''a'' is in ''A'' and ''b'' is in ''B''. In terms of set-builder notation, that is
: A\ti ...
of a regular hexagon and a
line segment
In geometry, a line segment is a part of a straight line that is bounded by two distinct end points, and contains every point on the line that is between its endpoints. The length of a line segment is given by the Euclidean distance between ...
, and represented by the product ×. The
dual of a hexagonal prism is a
hexagonal bipyramid
A hexagonal bipyramid is a polyhedron formed from two hexagonal pyramid (geometry), pyramids joined at their bases. The resulting solid has 12 triangular face (geometry), faces, 8 vertex (geometry), vertices and 18 edges. The 12 faces are identic ...
.
The
symmetry group
In group theory, the symmetry group of a geometric object is the group of all transformations under which the object is invariant, endowed with the group operation of composition. Such a transformation is an invertible mapping of the ambient ...
of a right hexagonal prism is
''D6h'' of order 24. The
rotation group
In mathematics, the orthogonal group in dimension , denoted , is the group of distance-preserving transformations of a Euclidean space of dimension that preserve a fixed point, where the group operation is given by composing transformations. ...
is ''D
6'' of order 12.
Volume
As in most prisms, the volume is found by taking the area of the base, with a side length of
, and multiplying it by the height
, giving the formula:
[.]
and it's surface area can be
.
Symmetry
The topology of a uniform hexagonal prism can have geometric variations of lower symmetry, including:
As part of spatial tesselations
It exists as cells of four prismatic
uniform convex honeycomb
In geometry, a convex uniform honeycomb is a uniform polytope, uniform tessellation which fills three-dimensional Euclidean space with non-overlapping convex polyhedron, convex uniform polyhedron, uniform polyhedral cells.
Twenty-eight such honey ...
s in 3 dimensions:
It also exists as cells of a number of four-dimensional
uniform 4-polytope
In geometry, a uniform 4-polytope (or uniform polychoron) is a 4-dimensional polytope which is vertex-transitive and whose cells are uniform polyhedra, and faces are regular polygons.
There are 47 non-prismatic convex uniform 4-polytopes. There ...
s, including:
Related polyhedra and tilings
This polyhedron can be considered a member of a sequence of uniform patterns with vertex figure (4.6.2p) and
Coxeter-Dynkin diagram . For ''p'' < 6, the members of the sequence are
omnitruncated polyhedra (
zonohedron
In geometry, a zonohedron is a convex polyhedron that is centrally symmetric, every face of which is a polygon that is centrally symmetric (a zonogon). Any zonohedron may equivalently be described as the Minkowski sum of a set of line segments in ...
s), shown below as spherical tilings. For ''p'' > 6, they are tilings of the hyperbolic plane, starting with the
truncated triheptagonal tiling
In geometry, the truncated triheptagonal tiling is a semiregular tiling of the hyperbolic plane. There are one square, one hexagon, and one tetradecagon (14-sides) on each vertex. It has Schläfli symbol of
Uniform colorings
There is only o ...
.
See also
References
External links
Uniform Honeycombs in 3-SpaceVRML models
The Uniform PolyhedraThe Encyclopedia of Polyhedr
*
Hexagonal Prism Interactive Model-- works in your web browser
Prismatoid polyhedra
Space-filling polyhedra
Zonohedra
{{Polyhedron-stub