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Volume with fractional cubes

Another way of finding the volume of a rectangular prism involves dividing it into fractional cubes, finding the volume of one, and then multiplying that volume by the number of cubes that fit into our rectangular prism. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • starky ultimate style avatar for user David Beskhyroun
    I don't understand how 1/4*1/4*1/4 equals 1/64. Doesn't timesing usually make the number bigger!?
    (25 votes)
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  • old spice man blue style avatar for user Ayush Bhatia
    I still do not understand the fact that if on of those small cubes is 1/4 ft and the volume is 1/4 cubic ft which is 1/64 cubic feet, why does it seem that the volume is less than the size of the cubes that are definitely smaller than the volume?
    (9 votes)
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  • starky sapling style avatar for user adina p
    I am still very confused and I've watched this video 3 times. I just still don't understand the steps that you need to do when doing these questions.
    (15 votes)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Katherine Chen
      Well, first you have to figure out the volume of one cube (e.g., 1/4*1/4*1/4=1/64), then you have to figure out how many cubes there are in the figure. Because the volume of one cube isn't one, you would then multiply the number of cubes by the volume of one cube. This way you would get the volume of the whole cube. Hope that helps!
      (5 votes)
  • starky ultimate style avatar for user Starre
    Ehhh.... I don't get this! Please help! I'm confused.
    (16 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user iwilliams
    I need help. I don't get how the video and the quiz don't even say the same thing
    (11 votes)
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  • primosaur tree style avatar for user nesi2028
    He is making it sound much more complex than it really is
    (10 votes)
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  • orange juice squid orange style avatar for user Mindy :)
    This does not make sense at all!! Joshua can you help me find the area of a prism well I mean can you tell me how to find an area of a prism?! :)
    (11 votes)
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  • starky seed style avatar for user brentyn.groh
    1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 y tho just do 1/4 x 3
    (9 votes)
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  • duskpin tree style avatar for user Paola Nunez
    I get the part of finding the volume but I still don't get how you find the amount of cubes of a certain measure that should be inside of a 3-Dimensional figure. I usually understand math, but this part really triggered me and I still don't know why or how.
    (7 votes)
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  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user christopher.fonzo
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    (7 votes)
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Video transcript

So I have this rectangular prism here. It's kind of the shape of a brick or a fish tank, and it's made up of these unit cubes. And each of these unit cubes we're saying is 1/4 of a foot by 1/4 of a foot by 1/4 of a foot. So you could almost imagine that this is-- so let me write it this way-- a 1/4 of a foot by 1/4 of a foot by 1/4 of a foot. Those are its length, height, and width, or depth, whatever you want to call it. So given that, what is the volume of this entire rectangular prism going to be? So I'm assuming you've given a go at it. So there's a couple of ways to think about it. You could first think about the volume of each unit cube, and then think about how many units cubes there are. So let's do that. The unit cube, its volume is going to be 1/4 of a foot times 1/4 of a foot times 1/4 of a foot. Or another way to think about it is it's going to be 1/4 times 1/4 times 1/4 cubic feet, which is often written as feet to the third power, cubic feet. So 1/4 times 1/4 is 1/16, times 1/4 is 1/64. So this is going to be 1 over 64 cubic feet, or 1/64 of a cubic foot. That's the volume of each of these. That's the volume of each of these unit cubes. Now, how many of them are there? Well, you could view them as kind of these two layers. The first layer has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. That's this first layer right over here. And then we have the second layer down here, which would be another 8. So it's going to be 8 plus 8, or 16. So the total volume here is going to be 16 times 1/64 of a cubic foot, which is going to be equal to 16/64 cubic feet, which is the same thing. 16/64 is the same thing as 1/4. Divide the numerator and the denominator by 16. This is the same thing as 1/4 of a cubic foot. And that's our volume. Now, there's other ways that you could have done this. You could have just thought about the dimensions of the length, the width, and the height. The width right over here is going to be 2 times 1/4 feet, which is equal to 1/2 of a foot. The height here is the same thing. So it's going to be 2 times 1/4 of a foot, which is equal to 2/4, or 1/2 of a foot. And then the length here is 4 times 1/4 of a foot. Well, that's equal to 4/4 of a foot, which is equal to 1 foot. So to figure out the volume, we could multiply the length times the width times the height, and these little dots here, these aren't decimals. I've written them a little higher. These are another way. It's a shorthand for multiplication, instead of writing this kind of x-looking thing, this cross-looking thing. So the length is 1. The width is 1/2 of a foot, so times 1/2. And then the height is another 1/2. Let me do it this way. The height is another 1/2, so what's 1 times 1/2 times 1/2. Well, that's going to be equal to 1/4. And this is a foot. This is a foot. This is a foot. So foot times foot times foot, that's going to be feet to the third power, or cubic feet. 1/4 of a cubic foot, either way we got the same result, which is good.