Pythagorean Theorem

Pythagorean Theorem may not make a lot of sense when you first read it. Let's show more of what the formula does and what the words say in a picture.

If you take each side of the yellow triangle and use it to make a square (see the picture below), then you get the three squares shown below. The area of each square is length x width. So in this example the area of each square is a2, b2, and c2.

What the theorem says is that the area of the purple square plus the area of the blue square will equal the area of the green square. That's the same as saying: a2 + b2 = c2