Hypotenuse

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William Hupy
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Hypotenuse

Postby William Hupy » Sun Aug 14, 2016 7:40 am

This word is composed of two words from Greek, meaning under and stretch. It stretches my imagination to ascertain how you get the long side of a right triangle opposit the right angle from "under stretch". Any thoughts?
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bnjtokyo
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Re: Hypotenuse

Postby bnjtokyo » Tue Aug 16, 2016 8:32 am

Good question. I trawled around on the internet and read various ideas. Apparently, the first use of 'hypotenuse" was in an English translation of Euclid by Henry Billingsley in 1570. He was apparently transliterating Euclid's Greek term. In other sources, people point out that the other two sides of a right triangle are referred to as "legs" so based on this anthropomorphic image, we can say the hypotenuse is the side of the triangle that "stretches" under the human form from the end of one leg to the end of the other. Of course we don't know whether Euclid had this was the image in mind, but the more I think about it, the more it reminds me of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

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Re: Hypotenuse

Postby Dr. Goodword » Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:58 pm

I like bjntokyo's thoughts on the subject, and apparently he did some research. On it. I'm trying to think of some metaphorical uses. I believe I have one and would like to see what other web-footed verbivores think about it and whether yall can come up with better ones. It's scheduled for February 9—if I don't fall behind.
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tkowal
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Re: Hypotenuse

Postby tkowal » Mon Feb 06, 2017 9:07 am

Even though legs is used most often for the two perpendicular sides, there exists in English the fancier word cathetus (plural catheti) which also comes from Greek: κάθετος. It is used in Spanish and Portuguese as cateto.


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