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
Pythagorean prime Pythagorean prime A Pythagorean prime is a prime number of the form 4"n" + 1. Pythagorean primes are exactly the odd prime numbers that are the sum of two squares; this characterization is Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares. Equivalently, by the Pythagorean theorem, they are the odd prime numbers "p" for which is the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle with integer legs, and they are also the prime numbers "p" for which "p" itself is the hypotenuse of a Pythagorean triangle. For instance, the number 5 is a Pythagorean prime; is the hypotenuse of a