In Popular Culture
The Pythagorean theorem has arisen in popular culture in a variety of ways.
- A verse of the Major-General's Song in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, "About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news, With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse", makes an oblique reference to the theorem.
- The Scarecrow in the film The Wizard of Oz makes a more specific reference to the theorem. Upon receiving his diploma from the Wizard, he immediately exhibits his "knowledge" by reciting a mangled and incorrect version of the theorem: "The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side. Oh, joy! Oh, rapture! I've got a brain!"
- In 2000, Uganda released a coin with the shape of an isosceles right triangle. The coin's tail has an image of Pythagoras and the equation α2 + β2 = γ2, accompanied with the mention "Pythagoras Millennium". Greece, Japan, San Marino, Sierra Leone, and Suriname have issued postage stamps depicting Pythagoras and the Pythagorean theorem.
- In Neal Stephenson's speculative fiction Anathem, the Pythagorean theorem is referred to as 'the Adrakhonic theorem'. A geometric proof of the theorem is displayed on the side of an alien ship to demonstrate the aliens' understanding of mathematics.
Read more about this topic: Pythagorean Theorem
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)