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.

      • neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        No shit… these are like old Chuck Norris facts:

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras

        the priest of Apollo gave Pythagoras a magic arrow, which he used to fly over long distances and perform ritual purifications

        A fragment from Aristotle records that, when a deadly snake bit Pythagoras, he bit it back and killed it.

        he once convinced a notoriously destructive bear to swear that it would never harm a living thing again, and that the bear kept its word

        • Bread@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Kinda makes you wonder if future archeologists would know the difference between the jokes being jokes about chuck Norris vs us believing he was a god that we worshipped. Maybe that’s all mythology is, some running gags that everyone took seriously.

    • 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.

      • StarDreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        The year is 5123. We have meticulously deciphered texts from the early 21st century, providing us with a wealth of knowledge. Yet one question still eludes us to this day:

        Who the heck is Magic 8. Ball?

      • 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.

        • MonkderZweite@feddit.ch
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          1 year ago

          There’s a copy of Wikipedia on the moon and the orbiting Tesla. With a shelf live of a few billion years.

          • Elohim@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Luckily the moon is a quick day-trip away in case we return to sticks and stones.