a. (0.5 meter) * [tex] 0.52^{n-1} [/tex]
b. (0.5 meter) * [tex] 0.52^{3-1} [/tex] = (0.5 meter) * [tex] 0.52^{2} [/tex] = 0.1352 meter
This assumes you mean "The top of the first path is the initial height of 0.5 meter" which would then use n=3 as the top of the third path.