Two high school students in Louisiana were featured on GNN last year for effectively demonstrating Pythagoras’ Theorem, a mathematical subject that has been unresolved for over 2,000 years, using trigonometry.
After making the findings, Ne’Kiya Jackson and Calcea Johnson received national attention, a sizable grant for their school, and invitations to write papers on it.
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The teenagers utilized their trigonometry knowledge to provide nine more methods to support the hypothesis in an article that was published in the American Mathematical Monthly on October 28.
Understanding the theory is a prerequisite to appreciating the extent of their achievement.
The following demonstrates how Pythagoras’ Theorem applies to non-perfectly symmetrical triangles.
By adding the areas of the squares on the other two sides, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse—the side opposite the right angle—is zero. A2+b2=c2 is how it is expressed.
One of the intriguing aspects of this equation is that, for two millennia, no mathematician has been able to prove its validity without merely utilizing the equation itself as evidence. This is known as circular reasoning, and it is not recognized as genuine proof.
Charles Barkley, an NBA icon and all-around wonderful man, gave their institution a sizable donation after the teenagers resolved this difficult issue.
In an email to Live Science, Johnson, who is currently enrolled at Louisiana State University to study environmental engineering, stated, “To have a paper published at such a young age — it’s really mind-blowing.” Johnson added, “I am very proud that we are both able to be such a positive influence in showing that young women and women of color can do these things.”
Johnson and Jackson claim that they showed the theory’s correctness without resorting to such evidence. The concepts of sine and cosine may be used to present equations in trigonometry, which is the study of triangles. The definitions of the ratios sine and cosine are related to the right angle of a triangle.
However, the young women claim that these two ideas have combined in an unfavorable way over time.
In their introduction, the two authors write, “Students may not realize that two competing versions of trigonometry have been stamped onto the same terminology.”
She added, “In that case, trying to make sense of trigonometry can be like trying to make sense of a picture where two different images have been printed on top of each other.”
In addition to this explanation, readers can examine the study’s presentation to see whether they understand the ideas. In any event, by separating sine and cosine, one may determine “a large collection of new proofs of the Pythagorean theorem.”
