History of mathematical notation back to any school or period before that of the Ionian Greeks, but the subsequent history may be divided into periods, the distinctions between which are tolerably well marked. Greek mathematics, which originated with the study of geometry, tended from its commencement to be deductive and scientific. Since the fourth century AD, Pythagoras has commonly been given credit for discovering the Pythagorean theorem, a theorem in geometry that states that in a right-angled triangle the area of the square on the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of
Special right triangle Pell numbers 1, 2, 5, 12, 29, 70, 169, 408, 985, 2378... .. The smallest Pythagorean triples resulting are: Alternatively, the same triangles can be derived from the square triangular numbers. The Kepler triangle is a right triangle whose sides are in a geometric progression. If the sides are formed from the geometric progression "a", "ar", "ar" then its common ratio "r" is given by "r" = where "φ" is the golden ratio. Its sides are therefore in the ratio . Thus, the shape of the Kepler triangle is uniquely determined (up to a scale factor) by the requirement that