Getting maximum number of pairs in a set I'm sorry if the title is unclear, I didn't know how to name this question. 

I have a problem where I have an array of numbers with positive integer values. For a pair of these integers to be considered valid, they should follow the format a^2 + b^2 = x^2, where a and b are the integers, and x is any whole number.

What I need to do is to find the maximum number of pairs that can be used concurrently (for example, if I have numbers {3, 4, 4}, the answer would be 1, even though there are two valid pairs (3 and the first 4, as well as 3 and the second 4), because we can not use both of these pairs at the same time.

Can anyone point me in the right direction toward solving this problem without brute-forcing all the combinations?
Your problem is an instance of maximum matching, for which there exist efficient algorithms. The vertices in the graph are the entries of the list, and the edges correspond to allowable pairs.