The perimiter of an equilateral traingle is 12 cm. Find the length of the altitude of the triangle.

Answer 1

One way to do this problem is to use the Pythagorean Theorem realizing that the altitude (h) is perpendicular to the base and that it splits the base of an equilateral triangle into two equal pieces. Also, realizing the if the perimeter is 12, each side is 4 like this:

Then 2² + h² = 4²

4 + h² = 16

h² = 12

h = √12 = √(4•3) = 2√3