Mathematician Has Popular Equation Stuck In Head All Day
July 26, 2000 | Issue 36•25
CAMBRIDGE, MA–MIT mathematics professor Dr. Charles J. Chang has had the Pythagorean Theorem, a popular mathematical equation, running through his head all day, he reported Monday. "I overheard one of my colleagues discussing it with a student this morning, and ever since, I haven't been able to shake the damn thing," Chang said of the simple theorem, which is used to calculate the hypotenuse of a right triangle. "The weird thing is, I'm not even all that into Pythagoras–I mainly read Boolean and Quadratic–but it's just so catchy." Chang has made numerous attempts to get the theorem out of his head, including reading all of E.H. Spanier's Algebraic Topology and calculating the circumferences of various circles.
A beautiful and simple proof of the Pythagorean theorem was discovered by President James Garfield in 1876. As far as I know, this is the only piece of original mathematics ever done by an American president. Garfield served six months as president (1881) and got shot for his trouble. He is the last American president to have been born in a log cabin.
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