A Hinged Dissection for the Pythagorean Theorem

Click on the red vertices of the yellow and blue triangles and swing them around to cover the white silhouette on top. The yellow and blue triangles then form a square with the green piece. Or swing the triangles around the other way to cover the white area on the bottom. The triangles and green piece then form the outline of two squares sitting side-by-side. Finally, you can adjust the relative sizes of the two squares by dragging the two red vertices of the green piece. After this latter operation, you may want to reposition the two triangles. There are two other ways to hinge these three pieces. Can you find them?

Back to Dissections: Plane & Fancy.
Also see Hinged Dissections : Swinging & Twisting.
Copyright 1997 Greg Frederickson.