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Pythagorean Triads

Pythagorean Triads are sets of three whole numbers that represent the sides of a right-angled triangle, exemplified by the set {3, 4, 5}. The document discusses the historical context of these triples, their generation through integer multiples, and introduces the concept of primitive Pythagorean triples, which have no common factors. A theorem is presented that provides a formula for generating all primitive Pythagorean triples based on two coprime integers, p and q.

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DhananjayareddyThanakanti
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12 views2 pages

Pythagorean Triads

Pythagorean Triads are sets of three whole numbers that represent the sides of a right-angled triangle, exemplified by the set {3, 4, 5}. The document discusses the historical context of these triples, their generation through integer multiples, and introduces the concept of primitive Pythagorean triples, which have no common factors. A theorem is presented that provides a formula for generating all primitive Pythagorean triples based on two coprime integers, p and q.

Uploaded by

DhananjayareddyThanakanti
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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PYTHAGOREAN TRIADS

Dhananjayareddy Thanakanti
10 February 2025

Three whole numbers that are the lengths of the sides of a right-angled triangle are called a
Pythagorean Triad or Pythagorean Triple. Thus, {3, 4, 5} is a Pythagorean Triad.
The formula for how to generate such triples was known by about 2000BC. This is “proved” by
a clay tablet (P limpton322) which contains fifteen different triples including (1679, 2400, 2929).
The tablet is dated to 1800BC. With your calculator check this is a Pythagorean triple. This
was obviously not found by chance!
Starting with (3, 4, 5) we can find or construct infinitely many such triples by taking integer
multiples:
(3, 4, 5), (6, 8, 10), (9, 12, 15), . . . .
Consider a triple (a, b, c) of positive whole numbers with a2 + b2 = c2 . If a and b have a common
factor then it also divides c. So a useful definition is that the Pythagorean triple (a, b, c) is
primitive if, HCF (a, b) = HCF (b, c) = HCF (a, c) = 1 that is, the highest common factor of a
and b is 1, etc. If we can find all primitive Pythagorean triples then we can find all triples by
simply taking whole number multiples of the primitive triples.
There are various families of examples. Consider the identity:

(n + 1)2 − n2 = 2n + 1.
√
So if 2n + 1 is a perfect square then we can construct a primitive triple ( 2n + 1, n, n + 1). In
this way, taking 2n + 1 = 9, 25, 49, 81, . . ., we obtain triples:

(3, 4, 5); (5, 12, 13); (7, 24, 25); (9, 40, 41), . . . .

It is possible to list all primitive triples. One form of this ‘classification’ is in the following
theorem. We shall prove it using some elementary number theory including the use of the
fundamental theorem of arithmetic and the use of the HCF. The symbol | is used for ‘divides
exactly into’. The result gives a formula for all primitive Pythagorean Triads

Theorem
If a2 + b2 = c2 and (a, b, c) is a primitive triad then a = p2 − q 2 , b = 2pq and c = p2 + q 2
where the HCF of p and q is 1 and p and q are not both odd

Proof. At least one of a, b and c is odd since the triad is primitive.


The square of a whole number is either a multiple of 4 or one more than a multiple of 4, hence a
and b cannot both be odd.

1
So we may assume a is odd, b is even and c is odd.

c2 = a2 + b2 so b2 = c2 − a2 = (c − a)(c + a)

Let d be the HCF of c − a and c + a, so d|c − a and d|c + a so d|2c and d|2a.
But a and c are coprime so d = 1 or 2 but c − a and c + a are even. So d = 2.
Hence we have ! !
c−a c+a b2 c–a c+a c−a
and are coprime integers. But = so is a square as is
2 2 4 2 2 2
c+a
.
2
c+a c−a b2
Set = p2 , = q 2 then c = p2 + q 2 , a = p2 − q 2 and = p2 q 2 or b = 2pq.
2 2 4
Finally if p and q are odd then a and c are even which is not the case.
So the theorem is proved.

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