Beyond Pythagoras

The first 200 words of this essay...

Beyond Pythagoras

Pythagoras was a great mathematician who created theorems and one of his famous theorems was the "Pythagoras Theorem".

You start with a right-angled triangle. The hypotenuse is labeled "c". The bottom of the triangle is "b" and the side of the triangle is labeled "a".

Pythagoras Theorem says that in any right angled triangle, the lengths of the hypotenuse and the other two sides are related by a simple formula. So, if you know the lengths of any two sides of a right angled triangle, you can use Pythagoras Theorem to find the length of the third side:

Algebraically: a2 + b2 = c2

The numbers 3, 4 and 5 satisfy the condition

9 + 16 = 25

Because 3x3=9

4x4=16

5x5=25

And so 9 + 16 = 25

I now have to find out if the following sets of numbers satisfy a similar condition of:

(Shortest Side) 2 + (middle Side) 2 = (Longest side) 2

a) 5, 12, 13

a2 + b2 = c2

52 + 122 = 132

25 + 144 = 169

169 = 169

b) (7,