what would the lowest surface area for a prism with a volume of 100 meters cubed???
(using only whole numbers for dementions)
what would the lowest surface area for a prism with a volume of 100 meters cubed???
(using only whole numbers for dementions)
The lowest surface area would be if the sides were all the same.
side length = 100^(1/3) = 4.641588833612778m
So the surface area would be 6*(100^(1/3))^2 = 129.2660814019129736 cm^2
this is the same as 6*4.641588833612778^2
or
the same as 6*(100^(2/3))
I'm just playing around with this......I don't know if it's correct....
L * W * H
Volume
Surface Area
1 * 1 * 100 m^3
2 ( 1 + 100 + 100) = 400 m^2
2 * 2 * 25 = 100m^3
2 ( 4 + 50 + 50) = 208 m^2
2 * 5 * 10 = 100 m^3
2( 20 + 10 + 50) = 160 m^2
5 * 5 * 4 = 100 m^3
2(25 + 20 + 20) = 130 m^2
WolframAlpha shows that the surface area is minimized when each dimension ≈ 4.64159 m
And the surface area ≈ 129.266 m^2
Which is exactly what Melody got........
But.....since each dimension must be an integer.........
I'm assuming that my last answer must be pretty close, since the surface area = 130 m^2
That is.....we have a square base of 5m on each side and a height of 4 m