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.

    • JoshRW@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You encouraged me to go look him up on Wikipedia. The history and legend of Pythagoras is some crazy shit apparently

      • KreekyBonez@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        damn. why did schools only teach the super boring part about the triangles. dude had the golden thigh of apollo and the super-speed of hermes.

        also, it really sounds like he was a cult leader.

    • jarfil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Will any of our writings be found in 2500 years? Are we a myth…?

      It seems to be a case similar to Socrates, or Jesus. Nice how Pythagoras was supposed to perform miracles, and stay a month “dead” just to later come back to life.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Will any of our writings be found in 2500 years?

        The media on which our electronic data is stored have lifespans measured in just years. Everything that the Internet consists of right now, unless it’s endlessly copied forward, will be lost.

      • angrystego@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I thought Jesus was a proven historical figure, because we have some independent Roman info about him.