Sums of Two Squares Visualized (Q6598531)

The well-known ``two-square'' theorem states that an odd prime \(p\) is the sum of two squares if and only if \(p \equiv 1 \pmod{4}\). In 1972, \textit{John Brillhart} [Math. Comput. 26, 1011--1013 (1972; Zbl 0259.10006)] described an algorithm, which is based on the Euclidean algorithm, for expressing a prime \(p \equiv 1 \pmod{4}\) as the sum of two squares. The paper mainly provides a geometric interpretation of Brillhart's algorithm.