hasáb

Hasáb is a term used in Hungarian to describe a geometric solid known in English as a prism. A hasáb is a polyhedron with two parallel, congruent bases and the side faces joining the bases are parallelograms. The bases can be any polygon, which gives rise to various prisms such as triangular, rectangular, or pentagonal prisms. If the base is a rectangle, the solid is a rectangular prism (téglatest); if the base is a triangle, it is a triangular prism (háromszög hasáb).

The distance between the bases is called the height (h). If the base area is B and the base perimeter is P, then the volume of a hasáb is V = B × h, the lateral surface area is A_lat = P × h, and the total surface area is A = 2B + P × h. Cross-sections parallel to the bases are congruent to the base, and the lateral faces are parallelograms (rectangles in the case of a right prism, where the lateral edges are perpendicular to the bases).

In everyday Hungarian, hasáb also refers to a rectangular block or strip of material or food, such as hasáb burgonya (potato wedges) or hasáb sajt (cheese sticks), using the same basic idea of a rectangular, elongated form.

Hasáb shapes are fundamental in geometry and appear in a variety of applications, including design, packaging, and architecture, where the concepts of base area, height, and surface area help in calculations and modeling.