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Pythagorean Theorem found on clay tablet 1k years older than Pythagoras (2009)

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Re: Pythagorean Theorem found on clay tablet 1k years older than Pythagoras (2009)

#71

Post by dr_dshiv »

p-e-w wrote: post #49
dr_dshiv wrote: post #10

Pythagoras was specifically known for accumulating the wisdom of diverse cultures—supposedly he met Thales, was initiated as Egyptian priest in Hermopolis, spent time in Babylon after being captured, and was initiated into every mystery cult he could. And as a boy on his home island of Samos, he would have been exposed to the building of the largest stone temple in Ancient Greece (to Hera) and the incredible engineer…

> supposedly he met Thales, was initiated as Egyptian priest in Hermopolis, spent time in Babylon after being captured, and was initiated into every mystery cult he could It should be noted that such claims were made about many ancient sages to boost their "wisdom pedigree". Plato is said by ancient sources to have traveled to Egypt and Italy, but my understanding is that most modern scholars doubt that those journey…

Pythagoras’s father was a gem trader from the Levantine coast so the likelihood of him traveling around the Mediterranean is pretty decent. His Egyptian connection is attested early by Herodotus and his devotion to diverse schools of wisdom is attested in a critical statement by his contemporary, Heraclitus.

Of course it’s hard to know. But Plato wrote several letters about his trip to Italy, because he was briefly enslaved there before being freed by his friend the Pythagorean Archytas (who is famous for creating a steam powered flying machine and wrote a work on mechanical engineering). https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

Re: Pythagorean Theorem found on clay tablet 1k years older than Pythagoras (2009)

#72

Post by imjonse »

somenameforme wrote: post #39
dr_dshiv wrote: post #10

Pythagoras was specifically known for accumulating the wisdom of diverse cultures—supposedly he met Thales, was initiated as Egyptian priest in Hermopolis, spent time in Babylon after being captured, and was initiated into every mystery cult he could. And as a boy on his home island of Samos, he would have been exposed to the building of the largest stone temple in Ancient Greece (to Hera) and the incredible engineer…

Oh how can you skip the most fun tale of them all. [1] Its authenticity is dubious, but there's probably at least parts of truth in it. In a nutshell, Pythagoras started a cult based around numbers, and the pseudo-divine purity of rational numbers - of which everything can be represented. Hippasus, a member of said cult, however managed to compellingly demonstrate that the square root of 2 could not be a rational num…

Pythagoras definitely did not have him killed since he had been dead for ~50 years. So even if the story is true it is about Pythagoreans, the followers of Pythagoras.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem found on clay tablet 1k years older than Pythagoras (2009)

#74

Post by rkagerer »

smokel wrote: post #47

I sometimes wonder how people will remember the invention of computers, smartphones, and the internet in a few centuries. People will most probably learn that either Bill Gates or Elon Musk invented it all in one evening when an apple fell from a tree.

This may be a bit forced, but you missed a golden opportunity to capitalize the "A" in that sentiment and accerate my reaction.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem found on clay tablet 1k years older than Pythagoras (2009)

#75

Post by WalterBright »

fsckboy wrote: post #20
WalterBright wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every group who ever managed to build a building with a rectangular foundation figured out the relation between the side lengths and the diagonal. I don't see why that was necessary. You can get pretty far with eyeballing it and custom cutting to fit.

> I don't see why that was necessary. You can get pretty far with eyeballing it and custom cutting to fit. i'm not saying at all that I know the answer, but eyeballing and cutting is good for a patio, but on a ziggurat or pyramid scale it seems you don't do so much eyeballing or cutting, and more planning how much material and how many slaves you're going to need for how long, and where to put the doors so the passag…

I've seen many Mayan structures in Mexico, and they all look like they were eyeballed.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem found on clay tablet 1k years older than Pythagoras (2009)

#76

Post by WalterBright »

saithound wrote: post #8
WalterBright wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every group who ever managed to build a building with a rectangular foundation figured out the relation between the side lengths and the diagonal. I don't see why that was necessary. You can get pretty far with eyeballing it and custom cutting to fit.

A "you" can, and many individual "you"s presumably did that, to general satisfaction. But the implicit assumption you made is that eyeballing and cutting is easy, while triangles are hard, even though it's the other way around, especially with stone age tools. But we're talking about groups of people, "they", who all build a lot. Such groups tend to have a few people who make these observations, and then the observat…

You can easily accurately lay out a large square without knowledge of Pythagorean Theorem.

1. lay out a straight line 2x in length.

2. find midpoint (easy by drawing an arc with a string from each end point. Basic compass & ruler technique.

3. draw another arc from the midpoint, of radius 1x. Try different spots on the arc until it is equidistant from each of the endpoints of the line.

4. voila! an accurate right angle. Laying out the rest of the square is now trivial.

Re: Pythagorean Theorem found on clay tablet 1k years older than Pythagoras (2009)

#78

Post by orf »

freework wrote: post #57
mandmandam wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue with you, but you've just produced a bunch of squiggles. > It's very much a stretch to say the person who etched those markings intended to express the Pythagorean theorem. No it isn't. There are legit reasons to question a lot of the research on ancient civs, but that isn't one of them.

How is this different from seeing a fuzzy video of some lights in the sky and then coming to the conclusion that it is definitely a UFO? If you're so convinced that this carving definitely proves that the carver was intending to express the Pythagorean formula, then what is the evidence? Some people's definition of "evidence" is different from my own. If somebody really wants to believe something, then just about any…

… because those “squiggles” are just “words” in a “language” you can’t “read”?

And if you could read it, you would find it contains a lot of relevant things, concluding with:

> … 1.414213, which is nothing other than the decimal value of the square root of 2, accurate to the nearest one hundred thousandth.

You might then think to yourself:

> The conclusion is inescapable. The Babylonians knew the relation between the length of the diagonal of a square and its side

Which is all clearly explained in the article you’re commenting on. Do you have anything else meaningful to add, beyond “it’s nuffin’ but squiggles mate” and “aliens”?

Re: Pythagorean Theorem found on clay tablet 1k years older than Pythagoras (2009)

#80

Post by danjc »

WalterBright wrote: post #6
saithound wrote: post #5

Every group who ever managed to build a building with a rectangular foundation figured out the relation between the side lengths and the diagonal. The Egyptians used Pythagorean triples to measure right angles way before the birth of Pythagoras. But that's not a theorem, just an observation. It becomes a theorem when you prove (i.e. explain why) this relationship always holds, based on more evident things. The Babylo…

> Every group who ever managed to build a building with a rectangular foundation figured out the relation between the side lengths and the diagonal. I don't see why that was necessary. You can get pretty far with eyeballing it and custom cutting to fit.

I built a tree house for my kids. I didn't exactly eyeball it but my amateur technique and planning left me having to do a lot of compensation for things being out of square.

Everything becomes a custom cut, often in multiple dimensions and all earlier errors cascade all the way to the end.

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