Pythagoras triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal [to the sum of] the squares of the two other sides"—that is, formula_1. According to a popular legend, after he discovered this theorem, Pythagoras sacrificed an ox, or possibly even a whole "hecatomb", to the gods. Cicero rejected this story as spurious because of the much more widely held belief that Pythagoras forbade blood sacrifices. Porphyry attempted to explain the story by asserting that the ox was actually made of dough. The Pythagorean theorem was known and used by the Babylonians and Indians centuries before Pythagoras, but it is possible that he
Sum of two squares theorem Sum of two squares theorem In number theory, the sum of two squares theorem says when an integer can be written as a sum of two squares, that is, when for some integers , . This theorem supplements Fermat's two-square theorem which says when a prime number can be written as a sum of two squares, in that it also covers the case for composite numbers. The prime decomposition of the number 2450 is given by 2450 = 257. Of the primes occurring in this decomposition, 2, 5, and 7, only 7 is congruent to 3 modulo 4. Its exponent