I recently saw a viral post on LinkedIn. Someone wrote:
“Why did we waste time at school learning Pythagoras’ theorem? Completely useless. I wish I had learned personal finance, relationships, or how to navigate life instead.”
This resonates with many people. I got the essence of her post, and I am very critical of Western education systems myself.
But about Pythagoras... I think she actually missed the point.
Because Pythagoras' theorem is about how reality reveals itself when you combine perspectives.
Stay with me, I swear it's not going to be technical. Just pure articulated logic, and as always a link to intelligence and strategy!
The theorem is simple: a² + b² = c²
If you know the length of two perpendicular sides of a triangle, you can DEDUCE the third, the invisible side.
It sounds trivial. But this logic contains a universal principle:
Two independent measures allow you to reveal what is hidden.
That is exactly the skill we need in life.
It offers us a quite simple methodology to observe reality sharply!
Let's have a quick look at personal finance through Pythagoras
Most people reduce money to a one-dimensional problem: "How much do I earn? How much do I spend?"
That's incomplete.
Think in Pythagoras terms:
- Side A = your present cash flow (income and expenses).
- Side B = your assets and liabilities (investments, debts, obligations).
Cross them, and you get side C: your true financial distance over time.
This explains why two people with the same salary can live radically different lives: one is drowning in debt, the other is building freedom.
The difference is that one dimension was ignored.
Relationships through Pythagoras? The logic applies too!
We often judge people on one side of the triangle: what they say. But words alone are not reality.
Add the second side: what they do.
Now you can calculate the diagonal: the coherence between words and actions.
That diagonal - the distance between promises and behavior - is the truth of the relationship.
HUMINT: extracting truth from contradictions
In intelligence, when an agent reports on a human source, they never rely on one signal.
- Side A = the source’s verbal statements.
- Side B = independent observation (behavior, environment, third-party validation).
Cross them → side C, the hidden intent or the operational truth.
The logic of the theorem applies to everything in life.
This is what makes HUMINT powerful: the art of revealing the invisible by triangulating human signals.
That’s Pythagoras at work in the field!
Strategy and decision-making, Pythagoras is everywhere.
This principle extends everywhere:
- GPS triangulation: position is found by crossing signals.
- Medical imaging: invisible structures revealed by combining axes of data.
- Intelligence work: truth reconstructed by comparing sources.
Pythagoras’ theorem is the mathematics of triangulation.
It teaches you that reality appears when two perspectives converge.
The lesson we missed in school
School presented Pythagoras as a formula to memorize... But it was never about triangles! It was about training the mind to think in multiple dimensions.
Because in life, one perspective is ALWAYS a distortion.
It's only when you cross-check, measure independently, and calculate the hidden diagonal, that you get clarity.
So YES, we should teach personal finance.
YES, we should teach about relationships.
But dismissing Pythagoras as "useless" misses the essence:
He gave us a mental model for truth.
Tadam!
Hope you liked this spontaneous piece, and... stay lucid !
Oriane
PS: I'm sure you already know but.. I'm not a mathematician. I don't spend my nights solving equations (or at least not of this kind 😂). I'm just trying to think logically and articulate patterns that actually make sense in real life. And sometimes… a high school formula explains the world better than a hundred books.