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Concept
Parallelogram law
Summary
In mathematics, the simplest form of the parallelogram law (also called the parallelogram identity) belongs to elementary geometry. It states that the sum of the squares of the lengths of the four sides of a parallelogram equals the sum of the squares of the lengths of the two diagonals. We use these notations for the sides: AB, BC, CD, DA. But since in Euclidean geometry a parallelogram necessarily has opposite sides equal, that is, AB = CD and BC = DA, the law can be stated as
If the parallelogram is a rectangle, the two diagonals are of equal lengths AC = BD, so
and the statement reduces to the Pythagorean theorem. For the general quadrilateral with four sides not necessarily equal,
where is the length of the line segment joining the midpoints of the diagonals. It can be seen from the diagram that for a parallelogram, and so the general formula simplifies to the parallelogram law.
In the parallelogram on the right, let AD = BC = a, AB = DC = b, By using the law of cosines in triangle we get:
In a parallelogram, adjacent angles are supplementary, therefore Using the law of cosines in triangle produces:
By applying the trigonometric identity to the former result proves:
Now the sum of squares can be expressed as:
Simplifying this expression, it becomes:
In a normed space, the statement of the parallelogram law is an equation relating norms:
The parallelogram law is equivalent to the seemingly weaker statement:
because the reverse inequality can be obtained from it by substituting for and for and then simplifying. With the same proof, the parallelogram law is also equivalent to:
In an inner product space, the norm is determined using the inner product:
As a consequence of this definition, in an inner product space the parallelogram law is an algebraic identity, readily established using the properties of the inner product:
Adding these two expressions:
as required.
If is orthogonal to meaning and the above equation for the norm of a sum becomes:
which is Pythagoras' theorem.
Official source
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