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
Right triangle and the midpoint of the side opposite that vertex. This is because the right triangle's orthocenter, the intersection of its altitudes, falls on the right-angled vertex while its circumcenter, the intersection of its perpendicular bisectors of sides, falls on the midpoint of the hypotenuse. In any right triangle the diameter of the incircle is less than half the hypotenuse, and more strongly it is less than or equal to the hypotenuse times formula_44 In a right triangle with legs "a", "b" and hypotenuse "c", with equality only in the isosceles case. If the altitude from the hypotenuse is denoted "h",