I think this is more a case of the triangle inequality in metric spaces, as you don't have to calculate any particular edge to see the shortcut, as well as that it applies to any even non-rectangular triangle.

[–] petersr@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

But if you want to know your saving, you will need to dust off the old formula. And if you do, you find the maximum saving to be around 41% (in the case of isosceles right triangle where the hypotenuse is a factor of sqrt 2 shorter).

[–] rainerloeten@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

That's true (y)