Triangular prisms have two bases, which are the surfaces they sit on. The bases of triangular prisms are in the shape of triangles, which is where the shape derives its name from. Triangular prisms are more well-known for their use in science in demonstrating how light is made up of a spectrum of colors. As light passes through the face of a triangular prism, it bends, or refracts, revealing the colors of the spectrum: blue, red, green, yellow, orange and violet. Pink Floyd popularized the triangular prism by using it on the cover of their album, "Dark Side of the Moon."
Adjoining the bases of a triangular prism are the faces, which are in the shape of rectangles, making it a right prism. There are two types of prisms: right prisms and non-right prisms. Right prisms all have faces in the shape of rectangles and are called right prisms because of the 90-degree angles associated with rectangles. Pentagonal and hexagonal prisms are both examples of right prisms as well. Non-right prisms have faces that do not have 90-degree angles. A triangular prism has three faces.
The edges of a triangular prism are where two sides meet. Because a triangular prism has three faces and two bases, there are nine edges which join them together. To visualize edges, think of the outer walls of a building. The point where two walls come together is an edge. The same is true on a triangular prism.
A triangular prism has six vertices. A vertex is the point at which multiple lines intersect to form a corner. On a triangular prism, one vertex is formed by the intersecting of two faces along with the base. Because the base of a triangular prism is in the shape of a triangle, there are three points where two faces and the base intersect, meaning each base of the prism has three vertices.