The right triangle is one of the most important geometrical figures, used in many applications for thousands of years.

A Greek mathematician named Pythagoras developed a formula, called the Pythagorean Theorem, for finding the lengths of the sides of any right triangle. He treated each side of a right triangle as though it were a square and discovered that the total area of the two smaller squares is equal to the area of the largest square. He wrote this discovery as a formula:

where c is the hypotenuse and a and b are the other two legs of the triangle. Move your mouse over the triangle to learn more.