 By letting "c" be the length of the hypotenuse and "a" and "b" be the lengths of the legs, one can also express the claim more succinctly as "a" + "b" > "c".In which case, a proof by contradiction can then be made by appealing to the Pythagorean theorem.First, the claim is negated to assume that "a" + "b" ≤ "c".