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New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

keith-mcnulty.medium.com

11–20 of 287 posts

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#11
post #2

The actual title is "Here’s How Two New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem" but I don't know why HN automatically converted it to this title.

"Here's How" is usually used for clickbait stuff and adds nothing of substance to the title itself.

New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

is both shorter and less editorial than

Here’s How Two New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent points, I am not sure why you were flagged as dead.

Because they are wrong? Read the article. > to make a proof of it would be to show why a^2 + b^2 = c^2 That's what the article shows as a final step. And it outlines what assumptions are made and how the final step is demonstrated. I have no idea what OP is rambling about.

Yeah, they made a symmetry argument, a series expansion argument, and a law of sines argument. None of those require the Pythagorean Theorem and are all separately proven. There may be a reason that it's wrong (I'm not a mathematician but the article's author is).

So, they showed why the sum of squares is true for the hypotenuse of a triangle. It's even an exact proof rather than a limit argument. That I could follow the steps, and other mathematicians seem unaware of this combination of tools makes it seem relatively novel.

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#14
post #2

The actual title is "Here’s How Two New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem" but I don't know why HN automatically converted it to this title.

HN strips clickbait titles. Same thing for listicles.

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#15
post #2

The actual title is "Here’s How Two New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem" but I don't know why HN automatically converted it to this title.

HN has some sort of algorithm to rewrite post titles to be a bit less link-baity.

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#16
post #3

[flagged]

I can't see how your claims relate to the article involved. The proof that's described uses a construction of infinitely many triangles and the formula for the sum of a geometric series, so it basically is a proof in it's form, whether it's correct or uses circular logic is another question but not it's merely a demonstration of properties (which is one way student proofs often fail but I don't see that here).

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#17

> By all accounts, these two teenage math students are the exact opposite of the majority of the math establishment. They are female, they are African-American, and they come from an area which is not particularly renowned for producing high academic achievers. This is just an awesome turn of events and one which should inspire anyone — no matter what their ethnic, gender or socio-demographic background — that excell…

I don’t think Privilege matters in all cases, look at the background of Ada Lovelace.

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#18
post #2

The actual title is "Here’s How Two New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem" but I don't know why HN automatically converted it to this title.

"Here's How" is usually used for clickbait stuff and adds nothing of substance to the title itself. New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem is both shorter and less editorial than Here’s How Two New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

I get why that's the default behavior but "adds nothing of substance" is a huge generalization that fails in this case.

An article with zero details about the proof could easily be titled "New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem" but couldn't accurately be titled "Here’s How Two New Orleans Teenagers Found a New Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem." Whereas here it says it'll have more details and it does. (although TBH this is less a "here's how they found" and more a "here's what they found", if I'm being extra pendantic).

The shorter title is less descriptive in this case.

Re: New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

#20
I have read about this proof for a bit and this is the first write-up that gives the slightest details. The phrase "using trigonometry" is confusing. What they do is assume functions sine and cosine exist, as normally defined, as ratios of triangle values, without assuming these have the various Pythagorean-theorem derived properties. They then construct an infinite series of nested triangles and use the formula for the sum of geometric series' to derive the length of the original triangle's hypotenuse. It certainly seems clever.

I'm still confused what axioms they're effectively using relative to the usual Pythagorean theorem proofs - most of these use the formula for area of a right triangle and this seemingly doesn't. On the other hand, it seems an infinite construct would require things like the axiom of induction, which may or may not be included in axiom of axiomatic geometry.

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