| The Great Pyramid of Cheops has been described as ‘the most enduring monument ever built’, and was counted amongst the seven wonders of the ancient world. A typical Egyptian pyramid is a solid with a square base and four triangular faces meeting at the vertex. More generally a pyramid can have a triangular base, in which case it is called a tetrahedron (= ‘four faces’ in Greek), or the base might be a pentagon, hexagon, ... . We see that if the base is a regular polygon (equal sides and equal angles) we can think of a circular cone as being the limiting member of this pyramid family. |
