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The Louvre Museum, Paris, has a large glass pyramid with a square base of 35 m. If the area of the four faces of the triangles is 1,442 m^2, find the slant height of the pyramid.

User Aronisstav
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1 Answer

5 votes

Explanation:

the slant height of the pyramid is the height of any of the 4 triangles that are the sides (faces) of the pyramid.

it is not clear, if the given area information is the total area of all 4 faces together, or of each individual side.

normally, I would take the first option, but to be on the safe side I will do both calculations.

remember, the area of a triangle is

baseline × height / 2

we know the length of the baseline (35 m) and the area.

out of this we will calculate the height.

option 1

the area of all 4 sides together is 1,442 m².

that means the area of one side (face) is

1442 / 4 = 360.5 m²

that gives us

360.5 = 35 × height / 2

721 = 35 × height

height = slant height of the pyramid = 721/35 = 20.6 m

option 2

the area of any one of the 4 sides is 1,442 m².

that gives us

1442 = 35 × height / 2

2884 = 35 × height

height = 2884/35 = 82.4 m

realistically, that is not the case and too large.

so, option 1 is the correct answer.

User Subtlearray
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