Question

A regular triangular pyramid has base edge 16 and slant height 15.
Find the length of a lateral edge.

Answer 1

I'm thinking it must look like this:

Answer 2

That is one face of the pyramid. The slant height goes down the middle of one of the faces and is 15, and the other height, the lateral edge, is your unknown, x.

Answer 3

When you take that triangle apart, so to speak, you have a right triangle with a base of 8, a height of 15, and what you are looking for is the hypotenuse of that right triangle. The only other way to solve something like this that involves a slant height is to be given the surface area of the solid. But you're not given the surface area you are only given 2 measurements and are instructed to find the missing one. You can find the missing one by using Pythagorean's theorem.

Answer 4

ohh I think he/she meant pyramid