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Forum URL: http://www.cut-the-knot.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/forumctk.cgi
Forum Name: This and that
Topic ID: 665
Message ID: 1
#1, RE: Squares and the Pythagorean Equation
Posted by alan on Dec-16-05 at 07:10 AM
In response to message #0
At least one of the three can definitely be a square; just take any triple and scale it by a number that makes one of the three a square, like 9, 12, 15. As for proving that there can only be one square, the generating equations
a = n^2 - m^2
b = 2nm
c = n^2 + m^2
seem promising. I believe these equations generate all pythagorean triples for non-negative integer values of n and m.