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
Heronian triangle triangles with these sidelengths, and joins them together along the sides of length "a", to obtain a triangle with integer side lengths "c", "e", and "b" + "d", and with area If "a" is even then the area "A" is an integer. Less obviously, if "a" is odd then "A" is still an integer, as "b" and "d" must both be even, making "b"+"d" even too. Some Heronian triangles cannot be obtained by joining together two right-angled triangles with integer sides as described above. For example, a 5, 29, 30 Heronian triangle with area 72 cannot be constructed from two