The Crystal Palace pane of glass (49 inches) as the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle, thereby creating a triangle with a length-to-height ratio of 2.5:1, whose base (adjacent side) was 4 feet long. By mirroring this triangle he obtained the 8-foot-wide gables that formed the vertical faces at either end of the prism, each of which was 24' long. With this arrangement, Paxton could glaze the entire roof surface with identical panes that did not need to be trimmed. Paxton placed three of these 8' x 24' roof units side-by-side, horizontally supported by a grid of cast iron beams, which was held up
Special right triangle ratios: The 3 : 4 : 5 triangles are the only right triangles with edges in arithmetic progression. Triangles based on Pythagorean triples are Heronian, meaning they have integer area as well as integer sides. The possible use of the 3 : 4 : 5 triangle in Ancient Egypt, with the supposed use of a knotted rope to lay out such a triangle, and the question whether Pythagoras' theorem was known at that time, have been much debated. It was first conjectured by the historian Moritz Cantor in 1882. It is known that right angles were laid out accurately in