152 MATHEMATICS TEACHER | Vol. 104, No.

2 September 2010
Curious young minds can sometimes inspire
one beyond all expectation.
My class of accelerated freshmen was looking
at Pythagorean triples. I mentioned a couple of
interesting patterns involving shortest sides that
were either odd or even. Collin was immediately
interested in the formulas generating these
special triples. I offhandedly told the class, Ive
never seen a formula that could generate either
the 20, 21, 29, or the 39, 80, 89 right triangles.
That was all it tookan offhand remark that
challenged Collins curiosity. He worked on this
problem with almost no input from me and
within a few weeks gave me a list of some really
amazing Pythagorean triples, including the two
I had mentioned.
Collin started with a pure discovery-based
approach, investigated the formulas he came up
with, and used his own computer program. Each
week he produced more challenging triples than I
had ever seen. After he showed me his formulas, I
was impressed that this level of work was produced
by a high school freshman. I asked him if he could
prove that his formula would generate all possible
Pythagorean triples. This paper is entirely Collins
work, and his passionate pursuit of mathematics
has truly inspired me. I am so proud of Collin.
Gerald Lamb
deeper
DELVING
Delving Deeper offers a forum for classroom teachers to share the mathemat-
ics from their own work with the journals readership; it appears in every issue of
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Edited by J. Kevin Colligan, jkcolligan@verizon.net
RABA Center of SRA International, Columbia, MD 20145
Dan Kalman, kalman@american.edu
American University, Washington, DC 20016
Virginia Stallings, vstalli@american.edu
American University, Washington, DC 20016
Jeffrey Wanko, wankojj@muohio.edu
Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056
Calculating Pythagorean Triples
SEARCHING FOR PYTHAGOREAN TRIPLES
My teacher showed my ninth-grade geometry class
two triples that can be used to calculate certain
Pythagorean triples given side a. For the purposes
of this article, a Pythagorean triple is defined as a
set of three positive integers that satisfy the Pythag-
orean theorema
2
+ b
2
= c
2
and can therefore rep-
resent the dimensions of a right triangle.
The first triple my teacher presented was
(1) a
a a
, ,
2 2
a a a a a a a a
2 2 2 2
2
, , , ,
1
2
+ a a a a
2 2 2 2
a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
where a is an odd positive integer. These terms
constitute a Pythagorean triple in which the longer
leg is 1 unit smaller than the hypotenuse. Elemen-
tary algebra verifies that the terms in (1) do form a
Collin RM Stocks and Gerald Lamb
Copyright 2010 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. www.nctm.org. All rights reserved.
This material may not be copied or distributed electronically or in any other format without written permission from NCTM.
Vol. 104, No. 2 September 2010 | MATHEMATICS TEACHER 153
Pythagorean triple because
(2) a
a a
.
2
2
a a a a
2
2
2
1 a a a a
2
1
2
+
a a a a

_
a a a a
,

__
,,

+

a a a a

_
,

__
,,
The second expression my teacher gave was
(3) a
a
,
2

_
,

__
,,

_
,

__
,,
+
2 2
__
1
2
1 ,
a
where a is an even positive integer. This represents a
Pythagorean triple in which the shorter leg is 2 units
smaller than the hypotenuse. The terms satisfy
(4) +

_
,

__
,,

_
,

,,

2
2
2
2
1
2
a
a a __
__

____
11
a a a a a a a a

_
,

__
,,
+

a a a a

a a a a a a a a a a a a

_
,

__

,,

2
2
1 .
These formulas did give rise to valid
Pythagorean triples, but they seemed very limited
to me. For example, neither could be used to
calculate the 20, 21, 29 right triangle. Therefore,
I decided to investigate the possibility of finding a
general representation for all Pythagorean triples
using Mr. Lambs triples (1) and (3).
First, I asked myself this question: If the
terms in (1) can be used to find Pythagorean
triples in which a side is 1 unit smaller than the
hypotenuse and if the terms in (3) can be used to
find Pythagorean triples in which a side is 2 units
smaller than the hypotenuse, then what equation
can be used to find Pythagorean triples in which a
side is n units smaller than the hypotenuse?
My next step was to make the triples look similar
to each other. A little bit of algebraic manipulation
on the terms in (1) and in (3) gives, respectively,
(5) a a a a a , , a a a a
1
2
, , , ,
1
1
, , , ,
1
2
, , , ,
1
2
1
1
1
2
2 2

, , , , a a a a a a a a

a a a a a a a a a a a a

, , , , , , , , a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
_
,
, , , ,

, , , ,
__
,,
, , , , , , , ,

2 2 2 2

_
2 2 2 2
,

__
,,
+
and
(6) a a a a , a a a a
2
2
1
2
2

a a a a

a a a a

a a a a a a a a
_
,

__
,,

_
,

__
,,
+
2
2
2
2
1
2
2
2
2
, .

,,

,,,,
++
22 22 22
a , . , .
I noticed that the only difference between the triples
is that several 1s in the first triple become 2s in the
second. I extended this pattern to produce the terms
(7)

_
,

__
,,

2
1
2 2
1
2
, ,

,,

,,,, 22 2 2 2 2
a
n
n
a , , , ,
n n
n
a
__
,

____
,,
+
2
2
n
.
It seemed to me that (7) might produce
Pythagorean triples if the smallest side is a multiple
of n. I reached this conclusion because (1) produces
Pythagorean triples if the smallest side is odd
(odd numbers are multiples of 1) and because (3)
produces Pythagorean triples if the smallest side
is even (even numbers are multiples of 2). However,
before I could go about proving this, I needed to verify
that the triple does, in fact, produce right triangles.
To make this process simpler, I set a = nr, with
n a natural number and r a real number because all
real numbers can be represented as the product of a
natural number and a real number. Note that
r > 1 and that a, b, and c are not necessarily integers
at this point. The triple became
(8)

_
,

__
,,

_
,

__
,,
+
2 2
__
2
1
2 2
1
2
nr
n
n
nr
n n
n
nr
n
, , ,

,,

,,,,

,,

,,,,
++
22 2 2 2 2 22
nr nr nr nr
which reduced to
(9) nrr
n
r
n
r , , . rr , , . rr , , .
2
, , . , , . 1 , , . , , .
2
, , . , , . 1 , , . , , .
2 2
rr
2 2
nn
2 2
11
(
, , . , , .
)
, , . , , .
2 2 2 2
+ , , . , , .
(
, , . , , .
2 2 2 2
)
, , . , , .
To verify that the triple produces Pythagorean
triples, I used the Pythagorean equation,
(10) nr
n
r
n
r
2
1
2
2
2
2
2
( )
+ rr
22
+ + +
(
+ +
)

+ +

+ + + +

+ + + +

+ + + +
_
,

__
,,
++
( )

_
,

__
,,
1
2
,
and simplified. The results were the same:
(11) +
( )
+ +
(
+ +
)
4
1
4
1
2
2
2
2
2
+ +
2
n
r
n
r + +
Having established that my triple satisfied the
Pythagorean theorem for all values of n and r, I set
out to prove that it can produce Pythagorean triples
given rational input. According to the definition of
a Pythagorean triple used in this article, a, b, and c
are all positive integers. Since any rational number
can be represented as the quotient of an integer and
a natural number and since a/n = r, then r can be
replaced by some rational number q
(12a)
a nq
b
n
q
c
n
q
a n a n
qq
(

)
+ qq + +
(
+ +
)

,,

,,

2
1
2
1
2
2
+ +
with q rational and n natural.
All three terms are divided by n
(12b)
a
n
q
b
n
q

( )
1
2
2
cc
n
q

+
( )

,,

,,

2
1
2
with the same restrictions on q and n. Because the
set of rational numbers is closed under division by
154 MATHEMATICS TEACHER | Vol. 104, No. 2 September 2010
nonzero numbers, the numbers a/n, b/n, and c/n are
all rational. Therefore, there exist integral a, b, and
c and natural n that satisfy (12a)(12b). Note that
when we are given q, any solution is not unique. As
proven in (1)(11), a, b, and c satisfy the Pythago-
rean identity because q is rational and the rational
numbers are a subset of the real numbers.
My hypothesis was that my triple in (12a) was
capable of producing all Pythagorean triples. For
example, if I take the Pythagorean triple
a = 20, b = 21, c = 29,
there should exist natural n and rational q that sat-
isfy (12a)(12b) for those values. Set
q
b c
a

b c b c

21 29
20
20
8
.
Substitute this result into (12a) to obtain
a = 20n/8, b = 21n/8, and c = 29n/8.
Selecting n = 8 satisfies (12a)(12b) for the original
values of a, b, and c.
PROVING THE THEOREM
To prove the theorem for the general case, I solved
for q = (b + c)/a (see fig. 1), which leads to n = c b. I
assumed that a, b, and c were greater than zero, which
is valid for right triangles. I then had to prove that
given any Pythagorean triple a, b, c, I could find n and q
that satisfy (12a)(12b). I did this by substituting q = (b
+ c)/a and n = c b

into (12a) to obtain the following:
(13)
a c a c a c a c ( a c a c ( a c a c a c a c a c a c
(13) (13)
bb
b c
a
b
(13) (13)
c b b c
a
(13) (13)
c
c b b
)

(13) (13)

b c b c

(13) (13)
+ b c b c + c b c b + +

(13) (13)

(13) (13)

(13) (13) (13) (13)

_
,
(13) (13)

(13) (13)
__
(13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13)

+ +

(13) (13)

(13) (13)
+ + + + + +
(13) (13)

(13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13)

_
,
(13) (13)

(13) (13)
__
(13) (13)
,,
(13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13)

+ bb + c b c b
2
(13) (13)
1
(13) (13)
2
2
cc
a
+ +

_
,

__
,,
+

+ +

+ + + + + +

_
,

__

,,

,
(13) (13)

(13) (13) (13) (13)

(13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13) (13)

,,

2
1
At this point, it is sufficient to simplify the right
side of each equation in (13) and show that a = a,
b = b, and c= c. As a first step,
(14)
a
c b
a
(14) (14)
c

c b c b
(14) (14) (14) (14)
+
2 2
c b c b
3
(14)
bc bb c a b b a b
a
c
c bc c a b b a
2 2 2 2
a b a b
2 2
b b b b
2 2
b b b b
2
2
(14) (14)
3 2
c b c b
2 2
a b a b
2
2
(14) (14)
+ c a c a
2 2 2 2
c a c a c a c a + c a c a
2 2 2 2
c a c a c a c a
(
2 2 2 2
(
(14) (14)
c a c a c a c a c a c a
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
c a c a c a c a c a c a c a
)
(14) (14)
b b b b
2 2 2 2
b b b b b b b b + a b a b
2 2 2 2
a b a b a b a b + b b b b
2 2 2 2
b b b b b b b b
(
2 2 2 2
(
(14) (14)
+ +
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
)
(14) (14)

+ + c b c bc c c c
3 2 3 2
c b c b c b c bc c c c c c c c a b a b
( )
++
(
b a b a
)

, (14) (14)

,, (14) (14) (14) (14)

(14) (14) (14) (14) (14) (14)

b
a
2
2
2
(14) (14)
Using the Pythagorean theorem where applicable
produces
(15)

(15) (15) (15) (15)
+
(
(15) (15)
)
(15) (15)
+
a
a
a
(15) (15)
c b + + c c + + c b
))
+ + a + +
2
3 2
+ + c b c b + + + + + + + +
2 2
+ +
2 2
))
+ + c b c b
))))
+ + + + + + + +
(15)
bb
a
c
c bc c a b b c
a
2
2
(15) (15)
3 2
c b c b
2 2
a b a b
2
2
2
2
(
(15) (15)
+ +
2 2 2 2
+ + + +
)
(15) (15)

+ + c b c bc c c c
3 2 3 2
c b c b c b c bc c c c c c c c a b a b
( )

(
b c b c
)

, (15) (15)

,, (15) (15) (15) (15)

,, (15) (15) (15) (15)

(15) (15)
which reduces to
(16)

+
( )

+
( )

, (16) (16)

,, (16) (16) (16) (16)

(16) (16) (16) (16) (16) (16)

a a
b
(16) (16)
b c
((
b a + +
(16) (16)
c
c c
((
a b + +
a
2 2
+ + b a b a + + + +
2
(16) (16)
2 2
+ + a b a b + + + +
2
2
(16) (16)
2

(16) (16)
Another application of Pythagoras yields
(17)

+
( )

+
( )

,,

,,

,
a a
b
b a
((
a
a
c
c a
((
a
a
2 2
++ aa
2
2 2
++ aa
2
2
2
which produces the desired result.
Therefore, (12a)(12b) is capable of describing
all Pythagorean triples and thus can be used to
calculate them given q > 1 and n chosen so that a, b,
and c are integers.
Given (12a) and the Pythagorean theorem, solve
for q in terms of a, b, and c.
First, b = n(q
2
1)/2 rearranges to become
(2b + n)/q = nq.
Because a = nq, the expression above can be
rewritten as (2b + n)/q = a or n = aq 2b.
Both sides are multiplied by a, but since a = nq,
this expression can be written as
an = nq(aq 2b), or a = q(aq 2b), which
rearranges to the quadratic aq
2
2bq a = 0.
The solutions to the quadratic are

q
b a b a bb b
a
+ b a b a b a b a
2 2
bb + +
,
which, when we apply the Pythagorean
theorem, becomes q = (b c)/a. However,
since triangles have sides of positive length,
only q = (b + c)/a is relevant.
Fig. 1 Solving for q was an important rst step in the proof.
Vol. 104, No. 2 September 2010 | MATHEMATICS TEACHER 155
For a few examples of how (12a)(12b) can be
used to find Pythagorean triples, see table 1.
CONCLUSION
I do not know whether my formula has any practi-
cal applications. If nothing else, I learned a lot from
developing the formula and composing this proof.
I learned the importance of looking at a problem
and determining precisely what needs to be proven
and also the importance of having more experi-
enced eyes review ones work. More important,
however, I learned that there are many opportuni-
ties in mathematics to make discoveries or to look
at old problems in a new way. When Mr. Lamb
wrote those two formulas on the board, I saw in
them something that perhaps no one else had seen
before. Similarly, I am sure that a student some-
where will be inspired by my work to come up with
something much more brilliant than I have.
Table 1 Using Equations (12a)(12b) to Find Pythagorean Triples
q a/n b/n c/n Min n a b c
3/2 3/2 5/8 13/8 8 12 5 13
5/8 5/8 39/128 89/128 128 80 39 89
13/8 13/8 105/128 233/128 128 208 105 233
2 2 3/2 5/2 2 4 3 5
5/2 5/2 21/8 29/8 8 20 21 29
12/5 12/5 119/50 169/50 50 120 119 169
29/12 29/12 697/288 985/288 288 696 697 985
70/29 70/29 4059/1682 5741/1682 1682 4060 4059 5741
169/29 169/29 23661/9800 33461/9800 9800 23660 23661 33461
408/169 408/169 137903/57122 195025/57122 57122 137904 137903 195025
COLLIN RM STOCKS, collinstocks@
gmail.com, a graduate of Living-
ston High School in Livingston, New
Jersey, is studying electrical and
computer engineering at the Cooper
Union in New York City. He enjoys
programming and solving puzzles.
GERALD LAMB, glamb@coastal.
edu, Collins mathematics teacher at Livingston
High School, currently teaches mathematics at
Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South
Carolina. IAN STOCKS; JIE ZHOU
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