Reflection: Presentation on Pythagorean Triples

Our group presentation on the Pythagorean Triples went as planned: we presented the theoretical background and the ancient methods of solving right triangle problems, as well as discovered an interesting extension of the 3-4-5 triangle. The reason for choosing this topic was that we found the Pythagorean Triple concept to be both very intuitive and easy to understand. To me, this extension was probably the most interesting part of our presentation, as it stretched our conventional perception of the 3-4-5 relationship even further to higher powers.

However, the challenge was to understand the reasoning behind the extension, which was an idea brought up by many other mathematics scholars, and why the cubic relationship does not hold for the other Pythagorean Triples. Moreover, the Mayan number system wasn't discussed in full during the class, so it was difficult to fully grasp the link between the 3-4-5 cubic relationship to the Mayan Long Count at first.

After spending some time researching the Mayan calendar, we had a general idea of how Mayans dealt with numbers and how similar and different it is from the Babylonian system we learned in class. Explaining the concept to others seemed like a tough task, but overall I think it was well received by the class.

Link to presentation

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