This is one of the reasons why we shouldn't name things after people.
this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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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.
Isn't this common knowledge that the Indians knew the theorem well before Pythagorus?
Given what other comments are saying about him (cult leader appropriating works of others), I think the west/europe would do well not to associate themselves with him.
Yes and also I have a hard time believing the builders if the great pyramid didn't understand it in some capacity either. They just didn't have symbolic algebra to express it the way we do .
There are mentions of pythagorian triplets in pyramid era Egypt, and in all fairness, ancient Greeks didn't have symbolic algebra either - it is a fairly recent form of expression.
And, as far as I know, ancient Indians were actually writing mathematical expressions in full prose form - word problems et al.
Cuneiform scripts were frequently coppied by scribes, so the theorem could be even older
I think that this theorem is at least as old as the pyramids.
The recent "Fall of Civilizations" podcast talks a lot about the history of the pyramids. They may still have known a lot about geometery, but the slopes and angles involved in the pyramid building seem to have been trial and error as much as anything
A few days ago I was building a Lego set and had to go back 10 steps because of a mistake and that made me very angry.
The pyraamids are way more complex and accurate as been build only by trial and error. It's architects knew exactly what they were doing and also geometric theorema way more complex as the one of "Phytagoras", as shown also in other ancient buildings, which are still difficult to reproduce by modern architects.
What makes you say that? I'm not an expert. Accurate geometry or not, the pyramids are pretty cool. What about them means it couldn't have been trial and error?
https://www.si.edu/spotlight/ancient-egypt/pyramid
About halfway up, however, the angle of incline decreases from over 51 degrees to about 43 degrees, and the sides rise less steeply, causing it to be known as the Bent Pyramid. The change in angle was probably made during construction to give the building more stability
Yes, the bent pyramid, but that say nothing, maybe simply a design of an bad architect. They always exist, even today.
There are records of why it was bent though. It was one of the first pyramids. The king wanted it very tall and steep. he ended up being burried in a pyramid with less slope. Do you have any archeological evidence of complex geometry being used?
Again, the pyramids are an impressive feat of craftsmanship and the organization of labor, but does that mean they employed the pythagorean theorem?
They may very well have known geometry, or at least developed during the course of their civilization but I don't think the pyramids represent sufficient evidence for them definitely knowing the pythagorean theorem
edit: also if you haven't heard the podcast, i recommend it. It's pretty cool
Ok so
because understanding the history of our technology gives anthropologists a better way to determine what we were capable of in our earliest stages of civilization. because understanding the history of us is important to understanding who we are. do you really not see the value in knowledge?
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
math murder cult = my new band
Send me a demo. Or hell I'll play bass
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:
- Smithsonian Institution: The Smithsonian has a vast collection of 3D scanned artifacts available online, including prehistoric tools and sculptures https://3d.si.edu/.
- Europeana: This digital platform features 3D scans of cultural heritage objects from across Europe https://pro.europeana.eu/project/3d-content-in-europeana.
- Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI): This non-profit organization promotes the use of 3D scanning for cultural heritage preservation https://www.culturalheritageimaging.org/.
Didn’t all kinds of antiquities get destroyed in Iraq? Totally irreplaceable stuff.
As you alluded, probably common in many places. How sad.
Oh man.
It's only recently that the idea of "archaeology" has been a thing. Before then there were only "antiquarians" which were just looters.
Often they had royal backers. There's a podcast series called "stuff the British stole"
There's pretty well documented instances in the 1800s in Egypt, and pompeii.
Honestly the amount of amazing stuff that has just been "collected" is just eye watering.
That puts some of my own knowledge into perspective :)
I knew Pythagoras was smart but I never knew he invented time travel. So cool!
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!
Quick! Change all the textbooks to “clay tablet theorem”!
Why not call it the Summerian Theorem ? Or Arabic/Persian/Philistine Triangulation Theorem ?