Believe it or not, the surface area and volume of prisms and pyramids, and cylinders and cones are similar and different. The surface area of prisms and pyramids both can be found by finding the area of each individual lateral face and adding it up. They are also different because for regular pyramid, you can simply multiply one-half times the perimeter of the base times the slant height added to the area of the base for the surface area. Cylinders and cones have ways to find surface area by finding the area of each shape forming the figure and adding them together. They area also different because you can find a cylinder's surface area by multiplying 2 times pie times the radius squared added to 2 times pie times the radius times the height. You could find the surface area of a cone by adding the lateral area with its base area. On the other hand, volume in prisms and pyramids both involve multiplying the area of the base times the height. However, the volume of a pyramid is one-third of the volume of a prism. Likewise, cylinders and cones both involve multiplying pie times the radius squared times the height, but the volume of a cone is one-third the volume of a cylinder.
