Right triangle and "b" are the legs of the triangle. If the incircle is tangent to the hypotenuse AB at point P, then denoting the semi-perimeter as "s", we have and , and the area is given by This formula only applies to right triangles. If an altitude is drawn from the vertex with the right angle to the hypotenuse then the triangle is divided into two smaller triangles which are both similar to the original and therefore similar to each other. From this: In equations, where "a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f" are as shown in the diagram. Thus Moreover, the
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