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
Fermat's right triangle theorem congruum is equivalent to the existence of a Pythagorean triangle with a square area. It is this variant of the problem that Fermat's proof concerns: he shows that there is no such triangle. In considering this problem, Fermat was inspired not by Fibonacci but by an edition of Diophantus published by Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac. This book described various special right triangles whose areas had forms related to squares, but did not consider the case of areas that were themselves square. By rearranging the equations for the two Pythagorean triangles above, and then multiplying them together, one obtains the