Tom Ritchford on Nostr: The Egyptians correctly identified a triangle of sides 12709, 13500, 18541 as being ...
The Egyptians correctly identified a triangle of sides 12709, 13500, 18541 as being right-angled.
How, exactly, would they be able to do that without both knowing Pythagoras' Theorem and having a generator function for integral Pythagorean triples?
"Proofs" weren't really a thing before the Greeks, but it seems certain there would have been some sort of demonstration of the general case, or otherwise, how would you find the concept in the first place?
How, exactly, would they be able to do that without both knowing Pythagoras' Theorem and having a generator function for integral Pythagorean triples?
"Proofs" weren't really a thing before the Greeks, but it seems certain there would have been some sort of demonstration of the general case, or otherwise, how would you find the concept in the first place?