Stereometry
/ˌstɛriˈɒmɪtri/noun
The measurement of volumes of three-dimensional bodies.
The Greek roots
Literally: “solid measuring”
The story of the word
Stereometry handles solids the way planimetry handles flat figures: cones, spheres, prisms and the space they enclose. Archimedes proved that a sphere is two thirds of its circumscribing cylinder and asked for the figure to be carved on his tomb, which Cicero claimed to have found overgrown two centuries later. στερεός meant stiff or firm before it meant three-dimensional, and that older sense is what stereo recording borrowed: sound with solidity, not sound in two channels.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
In a sentence
Timber is still sold by stereometry, in solid cubic metres.
The textbook moves from plane geometry to stereometry in a single chapter, which is where most of the class fell off.