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In mathematics, the Pythagorean theorem or Pythagoras' theorem is a fundamental relation in Euclidean geometry between the three sides of a right triangle.It states that the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides.
The angle opposite the leg of length 1 (this angle can be labeled φ = π/2 − θ) has cotangent equal to the length of the other leg, and cosecant equal to the length of the hypotenuse. In that way, this trigonometric identity involving the cotangent and the cosecant also follows from the Pythagorean theorem.
The Pythagorean theorem, and hence this length, can also be derived from the law of cosines in trigonometry. In a right triangle, the cosine of an angle is the ratio of the leg adjacent of the angle and the hypotenuse. For a right angle γ (gamma), where the adjacent leg equals 0, the cosine of γ also equals 0.
Explicitly, they are defined below as functions of the known angle A, where a, b and h refer to the lengths of the sides in the accompanying figure. In the following definitions, the hypotenuse is the side opposite to the 90-degree angle in a right triangle; it is the longest side of the triangle and one of the two sides adjacent to angle A.
The use of the Pythagorean theorem and the tangent secant theorem can be replaced by a single application of the power of a point theorem. Case of acute angle γ, where a < 2b cos γ. Drop the perpendicular from A onto a = BC, creating a line segment of length b cos γ. Duplicate the right triangle to form the isosceles triangle ACP.
The Bride's chair proof of the Pythagorean theorem, that is, the proof of the Pythagorean theorem based on the Bride's Chair diagram, is given below. The proof has been severely criticized by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer as being unnecessarily complicated, with construction lines drawn here and there and a long line of deductive ...
The 30°–60°–90° triangle is the only right triangle whose angles are in an arithmetic progression. The proof of this fact is simple and follows on from the fact that if α, α + δ, α + 2δ are the angles in the progression then the sum of the angles 3α + 3δ = 180°. After dividing by 3, the angle α + δ must be 60°. The right angle ...
The book advocates replacing the usual basic quantities of trigonometry, Euclidean distance and angle measure, by squared distance and the square of the sine of the angle, respectively. This is logically equivalent to the standard development (as the replacement quantities can be expressed in terms of the standard ones and vice versa).