Quandaries
and Queries
With a 30 degree angle at the top of a triangle and a height of 15 what is the base?
Ralph
Hi Ralph,
You can have triangles with the angle at the top being 30 degrees and the height being 15 units and yet the bases are of different lengths. For example if the triangle is a right triangle
then the length of the base is 15/root(3) which is approximately 8.66 units.
If the triangle is an isosceles triangle with height 15 units and apex angle of 30 degrees
then the length of the base is 2 
15 tan(15o)
which is approximately 8.04 units.
Penny