View Full Version : How to work out the perpendicular height of a triangle
imsurroundedbyfish
May 14, 2010, 08:18 AM
I'm about to take an important test in school, and today we did a practise run. There was one question I really didn't know how to work out. It was about the perpendicular height of a triangle, and we were given the base length and the area. Everyone around me knew the answer but I didn't even know where to start! So can anyone tell me how to work out the perpendicular height when given the base length and area and vice versa?
ballengerb1
May 14, 2010, 08:21 AM
Are you 100% sure there wasn't at least one more piece of info supplied?
galactus
May 14, 2010, 09:13 AM
Is it a right triangle?
If so, the area is given by
A=\frac{1}{2}bh
where b=base length, h=height, A=area.
h=\frac{2A}{b}
Plug in A and b.
InfoJunkie4Life
May 14, 2010, 10:07 PM
From what I remember all triangles can follow the 1/2bh rule for area. But that refers to the perpendicular height, not the length of another side.
Say you have a triangle with a b of 6 and an area of 24:
\frac{1}{2}bh = A
\frac{1}{2}(6)h = 24
h = \frac{2*24}{6}
imsurroundedbyfish
May 17, 2010, 09:11 AM
Wow, there's no 2nd or 3rd page any more
Curlyben
May 17, 2010, 09:14 AM
Nope cleaned up ;)
So you can get back to the question in hand.
The site looks the same in the UK as it does all over the world, this being the internet there are NO countries.
ballengerb1
May 17, 2010, 09:19 AM
Curlyben stepped in to this thread to figure out what's happened. He just cleaned things up but , from what he said, your screen looks just like ours.
imsurroundedbyfish
May 17, 2010, 09:22 AM
But anyway I have the info I wanted now so thank you for your time sorry for the inconvenience
:)