The square pyramid has a base of side length 8 cm and a slant height of 9 cm. What is the height of the pyramid?

Answer 1

We can think of the square pyramid in terms of triangles. In this example, the base of the triangle is 8cm and the hypotenuse is 9cm. The height is an imaginary line that goes straight from the base to the top of the triangle, forming a right triangle. This is what we want to find. We can use a²+b²=c².

c is the hypotenuse so c=9

let b=8

Now a²+8²=9²

Solving we get:

a²+64=81

a²=17

a=4.123cm

Hope this helps!