It was super fun to work with Michelle and Ivan!
In this project, I tried to follow the Babylonian path on figuring out the Pythagorean triangles on the templet Plimpton 322. It was amazing to learn that how they address a right-angled triangle as half of a rectangle. Moreover, to make sure that they only get rational numbers that can be presented in the sexagesimal system, they used the ratio of squares to express the relationship between sides in the Pythagorean triangles.
The process of understanding and interpreting ancient wisdom broadens my horizon. Before this project, when talking about the Pythagorean theorem, all I recall was the sum of areas of squares for the two sides is equal to areas of the square for the hypotenuse. Now, I have a new perspective to explain the theorem.
This kind of project would also work in the secondary school setting. The problem itself is not very hard, yet to seek the root of the given problem, many mathematical thinkings are involved. I would like to see how well secondary school students can handle it. More importantly, I hope it can foster students’ interests in math learning.
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