this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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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.

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[–] JoshRW@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You encouraged me to go look him up on Wikipedia. The history and legend of Pythagoras is some crazy shit apparently

[–] KreekyBonez@lemm.ee 32 points 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 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Elohim@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

a god that we worshipped

Would they be wrong? What’s the line between idolization and worship?

[–] Bread@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would argue praying to them and doing acts in their name. Although that last part could be twisted.

[–] DeanFogg@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

👏 Dear Harambe...