How do I find the base area of a rectangular prism after I have the surface area?
If the square base has side s, and the height is h, then the surface area is 2s^2 for the two bases, and 4sh for the 4 sides. 280 = 2s^2 +4sh = 2s(s+h) is the equation, but we don’t have enough information to solve it. We need s or h or something else involving them, like the volume or length of all the edges. In general, you need 2 equations to solve for 2 unknowns.
