The Pythagoras Theorem (Educational Piece)

The Pythagoras Theorem

Over 2000 years ago there was an amazing discovery about triangles: When the triangle has a right angle (90°) and squares are made on each of the three sides, then the biggest square has the exact same area as the other two squares put together.

It is called "Pythagoras' Theorem" and can be written in one short equation: a2 + b2 = c2 Note: c is the longest side of the triangle a and b are the other two sides

The longest side (c) is called the hypotenuse, so the definition for this theorem will be as follows:

In a right angled triangle:
the square of the hypotenuse is equal to
the sum of the squares of the other two sides

It is also possible to manipulate this theorem to discover the lengths of the shorter sides, for example:       a² = c² – b²

                                And:    b² = c² – a²      

Now all that is needed is to add values in the places of a, b and c and you can start using this amazing theorem to discover the lengths of unknown sides in a right angled triangle! This theorem is very useful in discovering the unknown length of a side in a triangle, but one must remember that it can only be used in a right angled triangle.