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
Fermat's right triangle theorem single Diophantine equation which can be simplified to Conversely, any solution to this equation could be factored to give a square congruum. (In particular, the squares formula_13, formula_14, and formula_15 form an arithmetic progression with congruum formula_16, which is a square itself.) Thus, the solvability of this equation is equivalent to the existence of a square congruum. But, if Fermat's last theorem were false for the exponent formula_17, then squaring one of the three numbers in any counterexample would also give three numbers that solve this equation. Therefore, Fermat's proof that no Pythagorean triangle has a square area implies that