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The Pythagorean Theorem - Educational Outreach

The Pythagorean Theorem - Educational Outreach

The Pythagorean Theorem - Educational Outreach

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What Bhaskara most likely did as an accomplishedalgebraist was to annotate the lower figure as shown againin Figure 2.21. <strong>The</strong> former proof easily follows in a fewsteps using analytic geometry. Finally, we are ready for thefamous “Behold! as Bhaskara’s magnificent DRV<strong>Pythagorean</strong> proof unfolds before our eyes.bac1 : AAA2 : ccc22Figure 2.21: Bhaskara’s Real Powerbigsquarebigsquare a abigsquareset2 A ( a b)(a b)22 2ab b b2 c22 a&littlesquare2 4( 4(22 4(A12 2ab bab)212ab) conetriangle2) Bhaskara’s proof is minimal in that the large square hasthe smallest possible linear dimension, namely c. It alsoutilizes the three fundamental dimensions—a, b, & c—asthey naturally occur with no scaling or proportioning. <strong>The</strong>tricky part is size of the donut hole, which Bhaskara’s useof analytic geometry easily surmounts. Thus, only one wordremains to describe this historic first—behold!54

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