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.
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.
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.
Unless you’re a contemporary, you’ll just be a story.
I thought Jesus was a proven historical figure, because we have some independent Roman info about him.