A Brief History of Pythagorus

and thePythagorean Theorem

• Pythagorus was born on the island of Samos in ancient Greece.

• We don’t know the exact year that he was born, but it is believed that he was born around 570 B.C.

• That’s almost 2580 years ago.

• Pythagorus traveled to Egypt and studied astronomy, philosophy, and geometry with Egyptian priests.

• By the time he was 55, he had returned to Greece and started a school.

• Pythagorus was the head of a secret group of men who worshipped numbers. They tried to find a mathematical

explanation for music, and the heavens.

The Pythagorean Theorem

Pythagorus was believed to be the first person to prove that this rule worked.

“In a right triangle, the sum of the squares of the legs is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.”

Vocabulary Words

Legs – the two shorter sides of a

right triangle

Hypotenuse – the longer side of a

right triangle

leg

leg

hypotenuse

We’ll call the LEGS – “a” and “b”

and the HYPOTENUSE – “c”.

a2 + b2 = c2