Right triangle Right triangle A right triangle (American English) or right-angled triangle (British English) is a triangle in which one angle is a right angle (that is, a 90-degree angle). The relation between the sides and angles of a right triangle is the basis for trigonometry. The side opposite the right angle is called the "hypotenuse" (side "c" in the figure). The sides adjacent to the right angle are called "legs" (or "catheti", singular: "cathetus"). Side "a" may be identified as the side "adjacent to angle B" and "opposed to" (or "opposite") "angle A", while side "b" is the side "adjacent to
Special right triangle Ancient Egypt; that their surveyors did use ropes for measurement; that Plutarch recorded in "Isis and Osiris" (around 100 AD) that the Egyptians admired the 3 : 4 : 5 triangle; and that the Berlin Papyrus 6619 from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (before 1700 BC) stated that "the area of a square of 100 is equal to that of two smaller squares. The side of one is ½ + ¼ the side of the other." The historian of mathematics Roger L. Cooke observes that "It is hard to imagine anyone being interested in such conditions without knowing the Pythagorean