Consider the right triangle ABC.
On the short side AB add a right-angled triangle ABD similar to ACB.
As is similar to , . Rearranging this equation gives:
Angle DBC = 90º. Thus triangle DBC is similar to and . Rearranging this equation gives .
Recall that the area of a triangle equals one half the base times the height.
So area() + area() = area(), gives
Replacing AD and BD with their values in the equations above we obtain:
Dividing both sides by then leads to
Pythagoras Theorem