The Pythagorean Theorem: A 4,000-Year History
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Number of Pages: 286
Published: 2007-05-21
List price: $24.95
ISBN-10: 0691125260
ISBN-13: 9780691125268
By any measure, the Pythagorean theorem is the most famous statement in all of mathematics, one remembered from high school geometry class by even the most math-phobic students. Well over four hundred proofs are known to exist, including ones by a twelve-year-old Einstein, a young blind girl, Leonardo da Vinci, and a future president of the United States. Here--perhaps for the first time in English--is the full story of this famous theorem.Although attributed to Pythagoras, the theorem was known to the Babylonians more than a thousand years before him. He may have been the first to prove it, b...