Volume of a 1½ × 2 × 1 cm box
Look at this box — its sides are fractions! How do we measure that?
Here's our box — a small rectangular prism.
It's one and a half centimeters long, two centimeters wide, and one centimeter tall.
Let's pack it with tiny cubes — each one half a centimeter on every side.
Each tiny cube has a volume of one-eighth of a cubic centimeter.
Three half-cubes fit lengthwise, four widthwise, and two tall — that's twenty-four cubes total.
Twenty-four cubes, each one-eighth, gives us three cubic centimeters.
There's a shortcut: volume equals length times width times height.
One and a half times two times one — also three.
Either way, the volume is three cubic centimeters. The formula works for fractions too!
Now you try. Find the volume of this box. What is the volume?