Hi Johnny! Have your dad show you why the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle equals the square of the hypotenuse ...

He can use the little diagrams (that I borrowed from Mr. GOOGLE) below if he wishes. (Click on it to make it a tad more readable!)





The diagram below is clearer to read, but you would have to compute the areas and write the equations out. Then again, what the heck--here's the "work."

Area of each triangle is ab/2. The large square is (a+b)^2
Thus (a + b)^2 – 4(ab/2)= c^2 or A^2 + b^2= c^2



Ask your geometry teacher to prove the Pythagorean Theorem and let's see how quickly he/she comes up with a solution ... there are dozens on the Internet.

Love

Grandpa