E OR Y

T H
THE U R AT I V E
O F F IG
B E R S
NU M
 A number that can be shown by taking points, or dots,
and arranging them into a regular shape, such as a
triangle or a pentagon. They are sometimes called
polygonal numbers because they are arranged to form
various polygons, or 2-dimensional shapes with three
sides or more.
 The Pythagoreans could not have expected the theory of
figurative numbers to attract the attention of later
scholars of the highest rank.
 The mathematician-philosopher Pascal wrote his Treatise
on Figurative numbers.
WHO IS PYTHAGORAS?
 N O ’ S
Z E Z
A D O
PA R
 Zeno of Elea (c. 490 - 430 B.C.)
was an important Pre-Socratic
 Greek philosopher from the
Greek colony of Elea in
southern Italy.
  Zeno is especially known for his paradoxes that
contributed to the development of logical and
mathematical rigour and that were insoluble until the
development of precise concepts of continuity and 
infinity.
 The paradox rests partly on the misconception that an
infinite number of ever-shorter length (and, similarly,
time duration) must add up to an infinite total.
 Suppose that Achilles runs 10 times as fast the
determined tortoise and gives it an initial start of 100
yards; say, Achilles runs 10 yards per second. Consider
the distances he has to cover. They successively 100
yards, 10 yards, 1 yard, 1/10 yard and so on.
ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE PARADOX

100+10+1+1/10+1/100.....,

= 111 1/9
 T H E N
R E A
A G O
Y T H E M
P O B L
PR etric Pro m
o f s
e om he o re
 G a n T
a g o re
P yth
 The Babylonians knew the result for certain
specific triangles at least a millennium earlier.
 “The area of the built upon hypotenuse of a right
of a triangle is equal to the sum of the areas of the
squares upon the remaining sides.”
 Rearranging the triangles, we can also form another square
with the same side length as shown in Figure 4-B.This means
that the area of the white square in the Figure 4-A is equal to
the sum of the areas of the white squares in Figure 4-B (Why?).
That is,  which is exactly what we want to show. *And since
we can always form a (big) square using four right triangles
with any dimension (in higher mathematics, we say that we can
choose arbitrary  and  as side lengths of a right triangle), this
implies that the equation  stated above is always true regardless
of the size of the triangle.
EXAMPLE.
 In fact, the contemporary Chinese civilization, which had
grown up ineffective isolation from both the Greek and
Babylonian civilization , had neater and possibly much
earlier proof than the one cited.
 The oldest extant Chinese text containing formal
mathematical theories, the Arithmetic Classic of the
Gnomon and Circular Paths of Heaven.
 Astronomical evidence suggests that the oldest parts go
back to 600 B.C., but there is reason to believe that it has
undergone considerable change since first written.
ARITHMETIC CLASSIC OF THE GNOMON AND CIRCULAR PATHS
OF HEAVEN
 The Arithmetic Classic represent the oldest
known proof of the Pythagorean theorem.
 The proof inspired by this figure was much
admired this simple elegance, and later found its
way into Vijaganita (Root Calculation) of the
Hindu mathematician Bhaskara, born in 1114.
 The last square and the four
are then rearranged to make
up the areas of two squares,
the length of whose sides
corresponds to the legs of the
right triangle. “Behold” said
Bhaskara, without adding a
further word of explanation.
 Bhaskara draw the right
triangle four times in the
square of the hypotenuse, so
that in the middle there
remains a square whose side
equals the difference between
the two sides of the triangle.