English

Rational Right Triangles of a Given Area

Number Theory 2019-08-16 v1

Abstract

Starting from any given rational-sided, right triangle, for example the (3,4,5)(3,4,5)-triangle with area 66, we use Euclidean geometry to show that there are infinitely many other rational-sided, right triangles of the same area. We show further that the set of all such triangles of a given area is finitely generated under our geometric construction. Such areas are known as "congruent numbers" and have a rich history in which all the results in this article have been proved and far more. Yet, as far as we can tell, this seems to be the first exploration using this kind of geometric technique.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1706.05919,
  title  = {Rational Right Triangles of a Given Area},
  author = {Stephanie Chan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.05919},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

16 pages, 13 figures. To appear in the American Mathematical Monthly