Mathematics poll
Feb. 18th, 2009 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciphergothInspired by a similar poll in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
palmer1984's journal.
About the "proof" question below: examples of the kind of proof I mean would be a proof that there are infinitely many primes, or that the square root of two is irrational, or of Pythagoras's Theorem. A proof in computer science counts too. By "know a proof off by heart" I mean that you'd be able to convince someone of it at a party, if they had the background to follow the proof.
If you know lots of proofs, feel free to choose one you particularly like in the last question...
[Poll #1351621]
palmer1984's journal. About the "proof" question below: examples of the kind of proof I mean would be a proof that there are infinitely many primes, or that the square root of two is irrational, or of Pythagoras's Theorem. A proof in computer science counts too. By "know a proof off by heart" I mean that you'd be able to convince someone of it at a party, if they had the background to follow the proof.
If you know lots of proofs, feel free to choose one you particularly like in the last question...
[Poll #1351621]
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 11:05 am (UTC)The thing that makes the proof work is that in both cases, the side of the big square is the long and short sides of the triangle put together. The four triangles are just moved from one place to another between the two, so they cover the same area. That means the area remaining - blue in one case, red in the other - is the same. The blue area is exactly the square on the hypotenuse, and the red area is the sum of the squares on the other two sides.
Is that any clearer?