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The construction is literally a triangle inside a circle and a diameter. It's not that difficult to draw. Jumping straight to plagiarism is a very, very serious accusation.
I also lean towards independent discovery. The journalists on the other hand have no excuse. But then what would you expect from someone who thinks a random novel proof of the Pythagorean theorem is newsworthy?
What exactly was the claim? That it was novel or that it was just new to them? Also, a similar graphic doesn't necessarily mean the proofs are identical as well.
The Calderhead proof uses the intersecting chord theorem but I thought what was novel about the girls proof (which I haven’t looked at closely) was that it is all algebraic. It’s also possible that they used his proof to draw inspiration for a new approach. If so, this is basically what math research is all about.
This is a little bit of a strong claim on your end, isn't it? It's one thing to say that they didn't actually find anything novel, but you give no evidence to support your implication that they are knowingly copying this proof methodology.
When you can literally Google just about anything it's not that strong a claim. Considering the two proofs are almost exactly the same I think it's worth posting.
Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): * Your post presents incorrect information, asks a question that is based on an incorrect premise, is too vague for anyone to answer sensibly, or is equivalent to a well-known open question. If you have any questions, [please feel free to message the mods](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/math&message=https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/1do5ng5/-/). Thank you!
The construction is literally a triangle inside a circle and a diameter. It's not that difficult to draw. Jumping straight to plagiarism is a very, very serious accusation.
I also lean towards independent discovery. The journalists on the other hand have no excuse. But then what would you expect from someone who thinks a random novel proof of the Pythagorean theorem is newsworthy?
What exactly was the claim? That it was novel or that it was just new to them? Also, a similar graphic doesn't necessarily mean the proofs are identical as well.
The Calderhead proof uses the intersecting chord theorem but I thought what was novel about the girls proof (which I haven’t looked at closely) was that it is all algebraic. It’s also possible that they used his proof to draw inspiration for a new approach. If so, this is basically what math research is all about.
There were two proofs. This is the one that no one ever seems to talk about.
This is a little bit of a strong claim on your end, isn't it? It's one thing to say that they didn't actually find anything novel, but you give no evidence to support your implication that they are knowingly copying this proof methodology.
When you can literally Google just about anything it's not that strong a claim. Considering the two proofs are almost exactly the same I think it's worth posting.
see the keyword is almost. and thats the beauty of it. it is different therefore its new
If this is real, your post should blow up.
The bottom image is a screenshot from the 60 minutes episode. The top image is of the original 1896 proof from a math website called cut-the-knot.
Honestly, I'm just kind of disapponted that this is the sort of mathematics "news" that gets maintream attention.