Line 1: Line 1:
If I really had to pick one (and I do!), I would have to pick the Pythagorean theorem. I have a few reasons - including memories of friends giving hour-long proofs of this theorem, memories of high school math, memories of a seven-page paper on Pytagoreas, etc., etc. I guess the main reason is that, besides right triangles being the sexiest triangles, it's one of the more commonly used theorems, and it comes in handy a lot in geometry - which is where I think I'll end up teaching first.  
+
If I really had to pick one (and I do!), I would have to pick the Pythagorean theorem. I have a few reasons - including memories of friends giving hour-long proofs of this theorem, memories of high school math, memories of a seven-page paper on Pytagoreas, etc., etc. I guess the main reason is that (besides right triangles being the sexiest triangles, and thereby making all right-triangle theorems the sexiest theorems) it's one of the more commonly used theorems, and it comes in handy a lot in geometry - which is where I think I'll end up teaching first.  
  
 
Pythagorean Theorem:
 
Pythagorean Theorem:

Latest revision as of 18:02, 31 August 2008

If I really had to pick one (and I do!), I would have to pick the Pythagorean theorem. I have a few reasons - including memories of friends giving hour-long proofs of this theorem, memories of high school math, memories of a seven-page paper on Pytagoreas, etc., etc. I guess the main reason is that (besides right triangles being the sexiest triangles, and thereby making all right-triangle theorems the sexiest theorems) it's one of the more commonly used theorems, and it comes in handy a lot in geometry - which is where I think I'll end up teaching first.

Pythagorean Theorem: $ a^2 + b^2 = c^2 $


  • For some reason, I had a little bit of trouble with getting this to work, so I hope everything went through all right.

Alumni Liaison

Correspondence Chess Grandmaster and Purdue Alumni

Prof. Dan Fleetwood