top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 131 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

What I would like to know is if tablets like this are being scanned digitally into three dimensions so that they can be reproduced. I feel like everything we find from antiquity needs to be scanned this way. With humans constantly going to war destroying history, I'd hate the idea of losing things like this forever.

UPDATE: And thus a journey down the interwebs rabbit hole begins. I need better internet and PC to check this out more later, but answering my own question, here's the entrance to the rabbit hole should others wish to venture with a few examples:

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Didn’t all kinds of antiquities get destroyed in Iraq? Totally irreplaceable stuff.

    As you alluded, probably common in many places. How sad.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago

    Most recently I remember it happening really really badly within Syria. Very intentional destruction. But yes, it happens all the time--Iraq included. With the technology we have now, we can preserve a lot of it (digitally at least).

    I hate how it's so damn hard to find these things and yet so easy to destroy it.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    A lot was destroyed but a lot of it was looted and and sold to sleazy collectors. Remember when the guy who owns Hobby Lobby got caught buying looted artifacts?

    Still horrible, obviously, but at least there’s some hope looted items will be recovered.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 100 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I knew Pythagoras was smart but I never knew he invented time travel. So cool!

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I took the opposite tack.

    You ain't shit, Pythagoras! You just wrote it down, you didn't figure it out, you absolute fucking fraud. We're taking your immortality back!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    And he invented plagiarism too!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 91 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    This makes a strong case on the discovery side of the discovery vs. invention controversy.

    Ironically, my dad idolized Pythagoras and the notion of discovering a scientific fundamental to be remembered for thousands of years, for which the secret is not to actually do science, but raise a cult of scientists who attribute their inventions to you. Like Thomas Edison.

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    raise a cult

    *cough* Elon Musk *cough*

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago*

    It was most of the Greeks. We credit Democritus with atomism even though the Greeks said it came from an earlier Phoenician, Mochus of Sidon. Even Democritus's teacher doesn't get credit.

    Democritus wrote it down in a way that survived.

    That's it.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    Not really. The Pythagorean theorem (or whomever you want to credit for it) assumes plane geometry. It’s not true in general.

    Plane geometry is the invention that makes all of the math work. The earth is not a flat plane (not even close to flat pretty much anywhere). If you want to do Pythagorean-like calculations between cities on earth, for example, you’ll get a much more accurate result with spherical geometry operating on geodesics. Unfortunately, spherical triangles not obey the Pythagorean theorem!

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 53 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Cool but is there a better source on this than "I fucking love science"?

  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • load more comments (6 replies)
    [–] 32 points 2 years ago
    [–] 30 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Cuneiform scripts were frequently coppied by scribes, so the theorem could be even older

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I thought it was pretty well established that Pythagoras didn't invent it, he was just the leader of a Math and Murder cult so he stole it

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • load more comments (4 replies)
    [–] 16 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I bet Pythagoras had substandard copper too

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    another nail in whitey's coffin. when will this woke history end

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Pythagoras wasn't white. 😎

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    People used to live longer back then, just look at the bible.

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Isn't this common knowledge that the Indians knew the theorem well before Pythagorus?

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    This is one of the reasons why we shouldn't name things after people.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    This, and the fact that most stuff is invented by teams and not individuals. I think our tendency to name after a single person helps keep the hero/savior/Messiah complex of western society alive, and blinds us to the power of community and cooperation. It's like "individual-washing" the past.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    I feel like at this point I've seen this story in 1,000 year old reposts.

  • source
  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    And garden of eden as well as the story with a baby in a basket in Nil, are already in Atrahasis epos, from which Gilgamesh epos copied btw.

  • source
  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    What a classic situation. Some hype man taking credit.

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    It always seemed weird to me that it would be formally developed so late. Like I've taken multiple trigonometry courses and can't even define trigonometry let alone make sense of most of it, but the Pythagorean theorem is a purely intuitive thing everyone does regularly. The first person to take a diagonal shortcut while walking understood it. It should have been the first thing mathematics codified after basic arithmetic.

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    There is lots of evidence of the Pythagorean theorem before Pythagoras. The attribution of the rule to him comes centuries after he lived. So likely he worked on codifying and proving the relationship using the Greek deductive and axiomatic system.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    load more comments
    view more: next ›