It takes a special kind of student to outsmart 2,000 years of mathematicians, but Calcea Johnson and Ne'Kiya Jackson just gave a presentation at the American Mathematical Society's Annual Southeastern Conference.
And they were able to find a way to prove the Pythagorean Theorem using trigonometry without circular logic, something mathematicians have been trying to do for nearly 2,000 years.
If you need a refresher on Pythagorean Theorem, you're not alone. Basically, trigonometry is based on Pythagoras' Theorem (A^2 + B^2 = C^2, sound familiar?), so using that same trigonometry to prove Pythagoras' Theorem is what's known as circular logic, because an idea can't prove itself.
If you're wondering how two high school seniors figure something like this out, well, it all starts with the teachers who challenged them to do the impossible.
Even if you don't understand their math it's easy to see that with the right push, students can do the impossible.