Question

A triangular prism has a volume of 5 m3. If each dimension of the prism is tripled, what is the new volume of the prism?

Answer 1

The volume is a three dimensional value that can be approximated by the volume of boxes used to fill the space. If all the dimensions are tripled, the volume of each of these boxes increases by a factor of 27, since each of the length, width, and height is tripled. This means the volume of the prism also increases by a factor of 27.

Answer 2

I suppose you can probably multiply five by twenty-seven, right?

Answer 3

I guess with a little more elegance, we could say the volume varies as the cube of the scaling factor.