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
Isosceles triangle a special isosceles triangle with the property that the other two inscribed squares, with sides collinear with the sides of the triangle, are of the same size as the base square. A much older theorem, preserved in the works of Hero of Alexandria, states that, for an isosceles triangle with base formula_3 and height formula_1, the side length of the inscribed square on the base of the triangle is For any integer formula_35, any triangle can be partitioned into formula_36 isosceles triangles. In a right triangle, the median from the hypotenuse (that is, the line segment from the midpoint of