Will science end?

[Quizatzhaderac]

That's a fun method!

I'm sort of bewildered that the 'that's impossible' claim existed in the first place. Was it just a textbook author saying it, or was there actually some formal proof that is now in conflict with this result?

There was no formal proof, but most of the basic rules of trigonometry depend on the Pythagorean theorem, so any proof involving them would be circular.