1609

Study math for long enough and you will likely have cursed Pythagoras's name, or said "praise be to Pythagoras" if you're a bit of a fan of triangles.

But while Pythagoras was an important historical figure in the development of mathematics, he did not figure out the equation most associated with him (a2 + b2 = c2). In fact, there is an ancient Babylonian tablet (by the catchy name of IM 67118) which uses the Pythagorean theorem to solve the length of a diagonal inside a rectangle. The tablet, likely used for teaching, dates from 1770 BCE – centuries before Pythagoras was born in around 570 BCE.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

who curses pythagoras?

At the very least that one guy who got drowned for blasphemy by the pythagoras cult, because he proved that the hypotenuse of a triangle with a base of 1 is an irrational number.

Also to be fair I imagine more people are cursing Euler for having his name stapled to half of every theorem and proof it seems.

[-] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 years ago

If you start talking about irrationality to a cult you're kinda asking for it. sqrt(2) is a beautifully irrational number!

[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

and the proof is very elegant - you could explain it to a (smart) elementary school kid

[-] havokdj@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Not gonna lie, that's extremely comical and on par for pre-early modern humanity

[-] creditCrazy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

From what I recall from learning about who Pythagoras was as a person he really liked talking things out while sailing

this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
1609 points (99.0% liked)

News

35962 readers
3107 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS