A Babylonian tablet from around 1770 BC uses principles of the Pythagorean theorem, suggesting ancient Babylonians discovered it centuries before the famous Greek mathematician Pythagoras for whom it’s named.
Basically nothing survived the millennia. The fact that so many Greek philosophers are known probably has more to do with the Greek->Roman->Medieval->Modern preservation chain than any special brilliance of the Greeks.
Yep. History is written by the victors. And Western textbooks are full of Greek names. But when it comes to Eastern contributions…? Eh, let’s just call it the “Chinese Remainder Theorem”. They don’t get names.
It paints a real strange picture.
In France most curricula go one step further and call it “the Chinese theorem”. Talk about internalised racism.
Internalized? I dont think you are using that correctly.
Institutionalized maybe?
Anything not preserved on stone or metal will be lost eventually.
Well, copying extends important things a bit; I don’t think there’s any original Aristotle copies. It’s really easy now, so last time someone asked about future preservation on AskHistorians the experts were pretty positive on the outlook.
You can buy stone-like optical disks that should last forever once burned, if you want to make a time capsule.
it’s not the fact that A^2 + B^2 = C^2 that’s important, it’s the proof
there’s been evidence for ages that previous civilizations used it
Even his role regarding the proof seems unclear. It was interesting to browse the Wiki articles about this theorem’s history. Could be him, or one of his students, or neither.
Didgdingding! /thread
I’m so excited for the next round of thread. Who will proof of Pythagorean theorem fight this time?
The paper (linked from the article) has a photo of the actual tablet in question, which was apparently discovered circa 1900.
Pythagoras: “I made this.”
@Bebo There’s been evidence for a long time that pythagoras was more cult-leader than mathematician, and his cult falsely attributed lots of things to him.
I actually remember watching a video about this on youtube, that Pythagoras was a sort of cult leader more than anything. So I found it quite interesting when I came across this article about the Babylonian tablet.
