I am trying to solve for the height of a right triangle. The base is .05 mm, and the apex is 0.5 degrees. I vaguely recall from high school that this should be enough information to solve for height, but I can't remember what equation(s) to use.

Hi Samantha,

With the help of a little trigonometry this is enough information to find the height.

From the diagram

tan(0.5^o) = ^0.05/_h 

and hence

h = ^0.05/_tan(0.5)  = ^0.05/_0.0087  = 5.7 mm

Penny