Pythagoras is powerful

The Pythagorean Theorem is one of geometry's most famous theorems. It appears in Euclid's Elements in the following form -

“ In any right-angled triangle, the square which is described on the side subtending the right angel is equal to the squares described on the sides which contain the right angle. “

If you examine the photo (taken from my grade 12 textbook!) that accompanies this blog post, you'll see that triangle ABC has sides of 3, 4, and 5 units. The square erected on AB has 9 square units, the square on BC has 16 square units, and the square on AC has 25. The sum of the first 2 squares equals the third: 9 + 16 = 25.

The theorem can be restated as this -

“ In any right-angle triangle, the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides:  c² = a² + b² . “

This theorem is useful to us because whenever we know the lengths of any 2 sides of a right-angle triangle, the theorem enables us to find the length of the third side! Contact us!