Pythagorean triple in the context of "Right triangle"

The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments have come to light only in a few locales. From 3000 BC the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, followed closely by Ancient Egypt and the Levantine state of Ebla began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for taxation, commerce, trade, and in astronomy, to record time and formulate calendars.

The earliest mathematical texts available are from Mesopotamia and Egypt – Plimpton 322 (Babylonian c. 2000 – 1900 BC), the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian c. 1800 BC) and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian c. 1890 BC). All these texts mention the so-called Pythagorean triples, so, by inference, the Pythagorean theorem seems to be the most ancient and widespread mathematical development, after basic arithmetic and geometry.

Plimpton 322 is a Babylonian clay tablet, believed to have been written around 1800 BC, that contains a mathematical table written in cuneiform script. Each row of the table relates to a Pythagorean triple, that is, a triple of integers ${\displaystyle (s,l,d)}$ that satisfies the Pythagorean theorem, ${\displaystyle s^{2}+l^{2}=d^{2}}$, the rule that equates the sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle to the square of the hypotenuse. The era in which Plimpton 322 was written was roughly 13 to 15 centuries prior to the era in which the major Greek discoveries in geometry were made.

At the time that Otto Neugebauer and Abraham Sachs first realized the mathematical significance of the tablet in the 1940s, a few Old Babylonian tablets making use of the Pythagorean rule were already known. In addition to providing further evidence that Mesopotamian scribes knew and used the rule, Plimpton 322 strongly suggested that they had a systematic method for generating Pythagorean triples as some of the triples are very large and unlikely to have been discovered by ad hoc methods. Row 4 of the table, for example, relates to the triple (12709,13500,18541).

In mathematics, a Diophantine equation is a polynomial equation with integer coefficients, for which only integer solutions are of interest. A linear Diophantine equation equates the sum of two or more unknowns, with coefficients, to a constant. An exponential Diophantine equation is one in which unknowns can appear in exponents.

Diophantine problems have fewer equations than unknowns and involve finding integers that solve all equations simultaneously. Because such systems of equations define algebraic curves, algebraic surfaces, or, more generally, algebraic sets, their study is a part of algebraic geometry that is called Diophantine geometry.