Elliptic geometry geometry is that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is greater than 180 degrees. In the spherical model, for example, a triangle can be constructed with vertices at the locations where the three positive Cartesian coordinate axes intersect the sphere, and all three of its internal angles are 90 degrees, summing to 270 degrees. For sufficiently small triangles, the excess over 180 degrees can be made arbitrarily small. The Pythagorean theorem fails in elliptic geometry. In the 90°–90°–90° triangle described above, all three sides have the same length, and consequently do not satisfy formula_1. The Pythagorean result
Triangle the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the lengths of the two other sides. If the hypotenuse has length "c", and the legs have lengths "a" and "b", then the theorem states that The converse is true: if the lengths of the sides of a triangle satisfy the above equation, then the triangle has a right angle opposite side "c". Some other facts about right triangles: For all triangles, angles and sides are related by the law of cosines and law of sines (also called the "cosine rule" and "sine rule"). The triangle inequality states that the sum