2 High School Students Prove Pythagorean Theorem. Here’s What That Means

Scientific American ^ | April 10, 2023 | Leila Sloman

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

I bet they have a mom and a dad, which should be, but won’t be the story.

[ChessExpert]

“Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, both at St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans.”

I bet if you went to the public schools, no one would have a clue as to what was attempted, probably not even the math teachers.

[Scrambler Bob]

Mathematics is the study of answers to which there are no questions.

= = =

“5”

Oh, you mean 2+2

[Varda]

I don’t know but I’d guess you’re right. The story I read spoke about what a top school it was. ( kids living with mom and dad are ubiquitous at those schools) The girls said that their teachers encouraged them to try it.
I like that. Nobody is telling them they can’t try something hard.

[Magnum44]

I saw the movie and have no doubt the characters were smart and able to do math. That was real physics. They were also a part of a huge team that made the space program possible.

Thats not the same as a high schooler claiming she can prove something with circular logic that the greatest minds in history have failed to prove over centuries.

[Apparatchik]

I had always thought that trigonometry was based on the Pythagorean Theorem. Who knew?

Good for these kids.

[Reily]

Computers existed!

https://astronomy.com/news/2019/05/apollo-computers-when-ibm-engineers-gave-rockets-a-brain

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

They will be heroes (deservedly) up until the moment the parents make a statement about the need for nuclear families.

[Honest Nigerian]

I am not racist.
Math is racist.
Further, I highly doubt the “proof” which they claim was actually achieved by the rigorous rules on math.
But it doesn’t matter because the exercise is irrelevant to anything practical or necessary.

[FatherofFive]

Mathematics is the study of answers to which there are no questions.

42

[Organic Panic]

“IF VERIFIED”

In other words the story matches the desperate narrative like the 14 year old “boy genius” who proved you can get unlimited free energy.

Next up... I can trisect an angle using geometric construction, produce monopole magnets, and finally bring my AC battery to market... I just need a few billion tax dollars...

[jimfr]

But math is racist!

[Nifster]

Good for them

[Mr. Jeeves]

We’ve seen too many fakes and exaggerations in recent years to immediately accept the story at face value. That’s the true dividend of affirmative action..

[Albion Wilde]

Computers existed!
https://astronomy.com/news/2019/05/apollo-computers-when-ibm-engineers-gave-rockets-a-brain

Your article is great, but it is about the Apollo missions starting in the late 1960s, which was several years after the mission depicted in Hidden Figures—the U.S.'s first manned orbital flight in 1962 with John Glenn. It llasted only 5 hours, but had required years of NASA development starting in the 1950s. The leading woman depicted in the film, Katherine Johnson, had gone to work for NASA in 1953. (She died two years ago at age 101.)

Part of the film version of the story depicted another of the black women mathematicians urging the use of a large computer for the Manned Space Center; but certainly no one had desktops yet in that era.

Don't know how old you are, but I remember when a publishing company I did business with in the 1970's installed a mainframe computer. The hardware was the size of a U-Haul delivery van, and they had to build a temperature-controlled room and extensive air-conditioning to house it—just to do word processing for typography, not terabytes of math. Today we have more computing power in our phones.

The entire trajectory of tech development is "more reach, smaller size, cheaper per unit of measurement."

There's a great moment in the 1995 film Apollo 13 about NASA's first lunar mission in 1970. The Houston control center was depicted with two or three rows of dozens of desktop computer stations where engineers in short-sleeved white dress shirts and neckties were tensely monitoring the voice communications with the astronauts as they approached the moon. Some glitch came up, and after a moment of extreme panic, they all suddenly whipped out their slide rules! (It's been almost 30 years since I saw the movie, so I hope my recollection is correct, but that should give you an idea how powerful a moment it was—and I'm a writer, not a STEM person.)

[MD Expat in PA]

Part of the film version of the story depicted another of the black women mathematicians urging the use of a large computer for the Manned Space Center; but certainly no one had desktops yet in that era.

Dorothy Vaughn. A remarkable woman as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Vaughan

[Albion Wilde]

The posts that inspired my pushback implied skepticism due to the current social mania that elevates fashionably intersectional but otherwise unqualified persons. So I’m keeping an open mind, not being adept at higher math myself.

Until it is reliably shown that the girls’ reasoning is invalid, I don’t wish to dismiss their claim simply because of their sex and race.

[Albion Wilde]

Dorothy Vaughn. A remarkable woman as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Vaughan

Totally agree; and wonderfully well played by Olivia Spencer. Your link says she had been Katherine Johnson's supervisor at first! I salute them. This is Dorothy Vaughan through her ages:

[Magnum44]

I wasn’t dismissing the claim based on sex or race, but some sure seem to jump right to that conclusion. The fact that many in todays work environment want to artificially elevate peoples of no particular accomplishment to places of stature may have had something to do with it. But more so, is giving children (cause that’s what they still are) the impression they can change the world in some incredible way when the fact is, the only way to do that is through teams where you play small incremental parts. No one does it by themselves. We should teach kids that if they want to change the world, be part of something great. Not that you can be an army of one.

Anyway, I don’t have any ill will towards these girls, but I ain’t blowing smoke up their butts to make them feel like they are smarter than all the other true math greats who have laid the foundations for our mathematical and physics based accomplishments.

I fall in a different camp than you. I’m skeptical until you prove it, as opposed to believing a claim until it’s disproven. My only exception to that is faith in The Creator.

[Albion Wilde]

Some glitch came up

PS
This restrained but very dramatic moment in the film popularized the now-familiar saying, "Houston, we have a problem."