*The Pythagorean theorem has baffled academics for 2,000 years but two high school students from New Orleans have reportedly solved the impossible.
Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson said that they’ve proven the mathematical theorem by using trigonometry, WWL-TV reports.
The students from St. Mary’s Academy presented their findings at a meeting for the American Mathematical Society in Georgia.
Johnson told WWL-TV, “It’s really an unparalleled feeling, honestly, because there’s just nothing like being able to do something that people don’t think young people can do.”
You can use this theorem (a^2+b^2=c^2) to calculate anything from construction coordinates to the unknown length of a side in a right triangle. Now This News writes, “The issue with proving the theorem with trigonometry is that much of trigonometry relies on the theorem being true, and thus it would be a logical fallacy to prove the theorem with trigonometry.”
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Black Teens From New Orleans Solve Math Problem Believed to Be Impossible For 2,000 Years—Black excellence! ✊????https://t.co/jowIDZg20y pic.twitter.com/IQcAKmJwnC
— Fannie Lou Hamer’s America (@FLHAmerica) March 29, 2023
As WWL-TV reports, “Using trigonometry to prove Pythagoras’ Theorem is what’s known as circular logic,” the outlet writes.
Johnson and Jackson referenced Elisha Loomis’ book, “The Pythagorean Proposition,” which writes that “there are no trigonometric proofs because all the fundamental formulae of trigonometry are themselves based upon the truth of the Pythagorean theorem.”
The two students countered Loomis’ claim, writing, “We present a new proof of Pythagoras’s Theorem which is based on a fundamental result in trigonometry – the Law of Sines – and we show that the proof is independent of the Pythagorean trig identity sin^2x+cos^2x=1.”
Johnson and Jackson are expected to submit their work to a peer-reviewed journal.
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