Nothing is ever invented by the person it's named after [1].
The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
21–30 of 82 posts
Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#22I don't know if it's true but we were always taught in the History of Maths course at Cambridge[1] that Pythagoras did not exist, or at least there was no evidence of a specific person called Pythagoras. Further if you followed the footnotes in most any research on the subject (especially claims that the Egyptians or Babylonians knew the theorem) you almost always end up at a loose end.
[1] https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/about-us/staff-profiles/tutor/pier...
Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#23Did Pythagoras/Pythagoreans ever claim they invented all the things they discussed?
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Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#24This is yet another evidence in favor of the idea that mathematics is not invented but discovered.
During a heated argument, a person I know argued that humanity advanced as fast as it did during the 19th century after aliens invented(!) electricity and gave it to us.
Took me a while to process
Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
The earliest known proof of Pythagorean theorem is due to Euclid. It is strange at all that any credit is attributed to Pythagoras, since Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians and Chinese all had discovered this [1]. And Pythagoras did not prove his theorem, to the best of our knowledge. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem#History
Also weird that (more generally) Euclid is only rarely mentioned by name, and more often nearly anonymously as the author of Elements. Yet, Pythagoras is named early and often.
Euclidian plane.... term is used all the time. Euclidian Geometry as well.
His ideas have a large part in Math and Geometry
Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is the most important point modern readers need to make. If we discover a proof earlier than Thales, regardless of whether it’s Greek, we might revise the discovery of trig. But this is about certain triples being used practically in Babylon (who recorded everything) without any recorded interest in the relationship between triples. Because Greeks first recorded the important part —- the proof —- I think…
I think that there are several ideas that are both powerful and that people muddle when they talk about mathematics. Also the talk is often tinged with cultural pride. The ideas are conceptualization, generalization, and rigor. The Pythagorean triples are a conceptualization that for certain right triangles, the squares of the three sides obey a relationship. The Pythagorean theorem is both 1. a generalization that t…
Also, rigor was romantacized. With the exception of The Elements, very little math till the last maybe 200 years had that level of rigor. Newton and Leibniz sure didn't.
Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#27Yes, but the point is the approach to proof (proving this for all cases) that represented a paradigm shift in mathematics, largely attributed to Thales.
The earliest known proof of Pythagorean theorem is due to Euclid. It is strange at all that any credit is attributed to Pythagoras, since Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians and Chinese all had discovered this [1]. And Pythagoras did not prove his theorem, to the best of our knowledge. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem#History
How would one discover the Pythagorean theorem without having a proof?
Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also weird that (more generally) Euclid is only rarely mentioned by name, and more often nearly anonymously as the author of Elements. Yet, Pythagoras is named early and often.
From what I remember from my epistemology courses, it's due to historiographical reasons: there are a lot of cross reference of the existence of Pythagoras from other texts, so his historical context and existence is well anchored. As for Euclid, apart from the Elements, there is pretty much no mention of him anywhere, which is even more troubling since the depth and reach of the Elements is massive and should have h…
This is close to what I was taught. I don’t know ancient Greek, so I wonder if that language draws a distinction between singular and plural in the way “the author” of Elements is structured.
Fwiw, I do recall that Pythagoras seems to have forbidden written records, so what survives are his followers’ notes, who apparently gave him singular credit where we might expect a collaboration.
Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#29So Pythagoras likely didn't even formulate the theorem - he was more into numerology and only cared about sum of squares triplets, not the results about right triangles.
On the other hand, we have strong evidence that the Babylonians understood and applied the "Pythagorean" theorem long before Pythagoras lived.
Additionally, the first recorded explicit statement of the theorem is actually by the Indian writer Baudhayan, over a century before Pythagoras.
The oldest extant proof of the theorem comes from Euclid. The proof commonly attributed to Pythagoras actually first shows up in the Chinese Zhoubi Suanjing, several centuries after Pythagoras.
Quite simply, "Pythagorean theorem" is a major misnomer.
Re: The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras
#30Next up: the shocking discovery of a Vedic interpretation of quantum chromodynamics ;) https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/vedic_science/quantum-mech...
I believe sites like these do a disservice to the ancient knowledge of Hindu people. There were many important discoveries, some unknown to the West for centuries, and still not having enough exposure (when you read math books, they start with Greeks, then maybe they gloss a bit over al-Khwarizmi and then jump right into the 17th century to all big names, as if nothing was happening for over a thousand years - well,…
Peter kingsley talks about this in both reality and a story that will pierce where you dive deep into the hidden connection between Pythagoreans and mystical traditions leading back to the mountains of Tibet.
The teachings of Falan Dafa also discusses this claiming that the earth and human civilizations has gone through cycles of destruction and renewal with the last period occuring in the time of the ice age where a small surviving group of mystics in Tibetan mountains managed to survive which matches up with the flood stories across cultures and recent scientific discoveries outlined by people like Graham Handcock.