Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Pythagorean theorem

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[edit] Pythagorean theorem

Reason

Though it cannot be considered as a formal proof of the Pythagorean theorem, the animation is elegant and simple to understand, being aimed at people’s geometrical reasoning rather then the analytical one. For that reason it is highly didactic and encyclopedic.

Proposed caption

The animation illustrates a geometric proof by rearrangement of the Pythagorean theorem, which states that, in any right triangle, the square on the hypotenuse (c, in the picture) is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides (a and b): c² = a² + b². In the animation, it is shown that the large square (whose area is equal to c²) can be decomposed into two smaller squares with areas a² and b².

Articles this image appears in

Pythagorean theorem

Creator

Alvesgaspar

• Support as nominator Alvesgaspar 21:51, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support I needed to watch five cycles of it to understand every detail, but it was fun. Highly encyclopedic. Nothing distracting about it, plain and simple. – sgeureka ^t•c 22:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Support I would, however, like a little more time to look at the last image and understand everything. Also, perhaps we could use a white background? This will make the Main Page version, on a purple background of similar saturation/brightness/whatever, look much better. Yellow on white might not show up too well, so maybe change that color, too.--HereToHelp 23:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

How about a neutral grey on white background, with black outlines for the shapes? Jeff Dahl 18:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• support--Mbz1 01:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support - It does take a couple plays to work out but then i got it. Very useful --Childzy ¤ Talk 11:50, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. It could be clearer. The final frame should last longer. The motion should be smoother to make it clear where things are going. The initial "a/b/c" labels should remain on the triangle. Some sort of thicker border, or flicker of color to the relevant area may be useful in drawing attention to that area. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-10-02 14:17Z
• Weak oppose. Brian said it all. --Janke | Talk 15:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per Brian. I would like to support it if it was clearer, though. --Sean 17:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support I think it's pretty clear already plus you can always watch it over and over again until you get it. Calibas 01:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Pretty cool but it's far too difficult to understand- it took me 3 or 4 replays before I got what was going on --froth^t 20:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - Bravo, that is much better than the majority (I believe), including myself! Maybe you want to make some suggestions to make it more obvious (and quicker) to less talented people - Alvesgaspar 21:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
• Weak support Neutral Like Brian, I'd like the final frame to last much, much longer. If an alternative is uploaded with a long enough final frame so that I can figure out what's going on, I'll support. Enuja (talk) 02:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC) Why does the triangle start big and centered and then move to the corner to be small and uncentered? I think the animation would look much more smooth (and have less time-wasting up front that doesn't help illustrating the concept) if the triangle just started in the corner. Enuja (talk) 17:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Info - New version, with smoother animation and longer final - Alvesgaspar 08:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment If so many people are needing to watch it multiple times to understand what's going on, maybe there needs to be a better caption. As is, the proposed caption offers a sort of convoluted explanation of what the image attempts to illustrate; if we made it clearer and elaborated there'd likely be a lot less question of what exactly is going on. Before I vote to support this image, I'd like to see its caption used to fill in whatever gaps in understanding the image leaves the viewer. SingCal 17:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Info - Fair enough. I have improved the caption - Alvesgaspar 17:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Reply to both of you. I think the new "improved" caption makes the image more confusing instead of better. Let's just admit that the average human is bad at math and doesn't even know what a hypotenuse is. And, as the nom said, it's a geometrical proof instead of an analytical one, so why go into math formulas then? I think the reason that most people (including me) need more than one cycle to understand what is shown stems from most people having never seen a geometrical proof of Pythagorean theorem. And I don't see how you can/should expect someone to get this non-trivial topic the first (few) time(s). – sgeureka ^t•c 18:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't expect the animation to be understood in just a few passes, that is why I made the sarcastic comment above. Mathematics is not easy specially for people who doesn't deal with it in a regular way (I wouldn't say though that average people are bad at math). But geometry can make difficult things a lot easier and I believe that this "proof" is within the reach of people with a just basic knowledge of math. BTW, you are right about the formulae, I made the caption a lot simpler. - Alvesgaspar 19:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose after much consideration, and with due thought given to the time spent making it. I just can't reconcile the time required to understand what's going on, and as far as geometrical 'proofs' go, I don't think this is the simplest way to illustrate the theorem. --jjron 15:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • If you know of a simpler geometric proof that can be put effectively in a animation, please tell us. Alvesgaspar 18:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

No consensus MER-C 03:54, 8 October 2007 (UTC)