Can the Pythagorean Theorem be extended like this? What is the significance, if any, of the fact th

Karina Trujillo

Karina Trujillo

Answered question

2022-06-13

Can the Pythagorean Theorem be extended like this?
What is the significance, if any, of the fact that
3 3 + 4 3 + 5 3 = 6 3
?
How curious this is. This would be like the Pythagorean Theorem exploding into a higher dimension, on steroids.

Answer & Explanation

Josie123

Josie123

Beginner2022-06-14Added 16 answers

This is, in fact, the analogous expression to the distance between two points x and y in the space R 4 . However, the "euclidean" (or "pythagorean") distance in n dimensions is given by:
i = 0 n ( x i y i ) 2
There is a generalization, called Minkowski distance:
( i = 0 n | x i y i | 1 / p ) p
And you recognise here your expression with p=1/3.
In conclusion, this is an integer expression for the distance between two points in R 4 , with the 1/3-Minkowski metric.

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