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This document provides two proofs of the Pythagorean theorem. The first proof uses similar triangles and proportional side lengths. The second proof is Euclid's proof from his Elements, which constructs squares on each side of a right triangle and shows the areas are equal through a series of congruent triangles and rectangles.

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96 views2 pages

JKJK

This document provides two proofs of the Pythagorean theorem. The first proof uses similar triangles and proportional side lengths. The second proof is Euclid's proof from his Elements, which constructs squares on each side of a right triangle and shows the areas are equal through a series of congruent triangles and rectangles.

Uploaded by

John Jacob
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Proof using similar triangles Proof using similar triangles This proof is based on the proportionality of the sides

of two similar triangles , that is, upon the fact that the ratio of any two corresponding sides of simila r triangles is the same regardless of the size of the triangles. Let ABC represent a right triangle, with the right angle located at C, as shown on the figure. We draw the altitude from point C, and call H its intersection wi th the side AB. Point H divides the length of the hypotenuse c into parts d and e. The new triangle ACH is similar to triangle ABC, because they both have a rig ht angle (by definition of the altitude), and they share the angle at A, meaning that the third angle will be the same in both triangles as well, marked as ? in the figure. By a similar reasoning, the triangle CBH is also similar to ABC. Th e proof of similarity of the triangles requires the Triangle postulate: the sum of the angles in a triangle is two right angles, and is equivalent to the parall el postulate. Similarity of the triangles leads to the equality of ratios of cor responding sides: The first result equates the cosine of each angle ? and the second result equate s the sines. These ratios can be written as: Summing these two equalities, we obtain which, tidying up, is the Pythagorean theorem: The role of this proof in history is the subject of much speculation. The underl ying question is why Euclid did not use this proof, but invented another. One co njecture is that the proof by similar triangles involved a theory of proportions , a topic not discussed until later in the Elements, and that the theory of prop ortions needed further development at that time.[7][8] Euclid's proof Proof in Euclid's Elements In outline, here is how the proof in Euclid's Elements proceeds. The large squar e is divided into a left and right rectangle. A triangle is constructed that has half the area of the left rectangle. Then another triangle is constructed that has half the area of the square on the left-most side. These two triangles are s hown to be congruent, proving this square has the same area as the left rectangl e. This argument is followed by a similar version for the right rectangle and th e remaining square. Putting the two rectangles together to reform the square on the hypotenuse, its area is the same as the sum of the area of the other two squ ares. The details are next. Let A, B, C be the vertices of a right triangle, with a right angle at A. Drop a perpendicular from A to the side opposite the hypotenuse in the square on the h ypotenuse. That line divides the square on the hypotenuse into two rectangles, e ach having the same area as one of the two squares on the legs. For the formal proof, we require four elementary lemmata: If two triangles have two sides of the one equal to two sides of the other, each to each, and the angles included by those sides equal, then the triangles are c ongruent (side-angle-side). The area of a triangle is half the area of any parallelogram on the same base an d having the same altitude. The area of a rectangle is equal to the product of two adjacent sides. The area of a square is equal to the product of two of its sides (follows from 3 ). Next, each top square is related to a triangle congruent with another triangle r elated in turn to one of two rectangles making up the lower square.[9]

Illustration including the new lines The proof is as follows: Let ACB be a right-angled triangle with right angle CAB. On each of the sides BC, AB, and CA, squares are drawn, CBDE, BAGF, and ACIH, in that order. The construction of squares requires the immediately preceding theo rems in Euclid, and depends upon the parallel postulate.[10] From A, draw a line parallel to BD and CE. It will perpendicularly intersect BC and DE at K and L, respectively. Join CF and AD, to form the triangles BCF and BDA. Angles CAB and BAG are both right angles; therefore C, A, and G are collinear. S imilarly for B, A, and H. Showing the two congruent triangles of half the area of rectangle BDLK and squar e BAGF Angles CBD and FBA are both right angles; therefore angle ABD equals angle FBC, since both are the sum of a right angle and angle ABC. Since AB is equal to FB and BD is equal to BC, triangle ABD must be congruent to triangle FBC. Since A-K-L is a straight line, parallel to BD, then parallelogram BDLK has twic e the area of triangle ABD because they share the base BD and have the same alti tude BK, i.e., a line normal to their common base, connecting the parallel lines BD and AL. (lemma 2) Since C is collinear with A and G, square BAGF must be twice in area to triangle FBC. Therefore rectangle BDLK must have the same area as square BAGF = AB2. Similarly, it can be shown that rectangle CKLE must have the same area as square ACIH = AC2. Adding these two results, AB2 + AC2 = BD BK + KL KC Since BD = KL, BD BK + KL KC = BD(BK + KC) = BD BC Therefore AB2 + AC2 = BC2, since CBDE is a square. This proof, which appears in Euclid's Elements as that of Proposition 47 in Book 1,[11] demonstrates that the area of the square on the hypotenuse is the sum of the areas of the other two squares.[12] This is quite distinct from the proof b y similarity of triangles, which is conjectured to be the proof that Pythagoras used.[8][13]

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