Given what other comments are saying about him (cult leader appropriating works of others), I think the west/europe would do well not to associate themselves with him.
Yes and also I have a hard time believing the builders if the great pyramid didn’t understand it in some capacity either. They just didn’t have symbolic algebra to express it the way we do .
There are mentions of pythagorian triplets in pyramid era Egypt, and in all fairness, ancient Greeks didn’t have symbolic algebra either - it is a fairly recent form of expression.
And, as far as I know, ancient Indians were actually writing mathematical expressions in full prose form - word problems et al.
A handful of people can be credited with discovering the theorem prior to Pythagoras, this isn’t the first time this has come up, and incidentally there is almost no evidence to suggest Pythagoras did.
The recent “Fall of Civilizations” podcast talks a lot about the history of the pyramids. They may still have known a lot about geometery, but the slopes and angles involved in the pyramid building seem to have been trial and error as much as anything
The pyraamids are way more complex and accurate as been build only by trial and error. It’s architects knew exactly what they were doing and also geometric theorema way more complex as the one of “Phytagoras”, as shown also in other ancient buildings, which are still difficult to reproduce by modern architects.
What makes you say that? I’m not an expert. Accurate geometry or not, the pyramids are pretty cool. What about them means it couldn’t have been trial and error?
About halfway up, however, the angle of incline decreases from over 51 degrees to about 43 degrees, and the sides rise less steeply, causing it to be known as the Bent Pyramid. The change in angle was probably made during construction to give the building more stability
There are records of why it was bent though. It was one of the first pyramids. The king wanted it very tall and steep. he ended up being burried in a pyramid with less slope. Do you have any archeological evidence of complex geometry being used?
Again, the pyramids are an impressive feat of craftsmanship and the organization of labor, but does that mean they employed the pythagorean theorem?
They may very well have known geometry, or at least developed during the course of their civilization but I don’t think the pyramids represent sufficient evidence for them definitely knowing the pythagorean theorem
edit: also if you haven’t heard the podcast, i recommend it. It’s pretty cool
because understanding the history of our technology gives anthropologists a better way to determine what we were capable of in our earliest stages of civilization. because understanding the history of us is important to understanding who we are. do you really not see the value in knowledge?
This makes a strong case on the discovery side of the discovery vs. invention controversy.
Ironically, my dad idolized Pythagoras and the notion of discovering a scientific fundamental to be remembered for thousands of years, for which the secret is not to actually do science, but raise a cult of scientists who attribute their inventions to you. Like Thomas Edison.
Edison, Watson/Crick, Musk, Jobs…I hope today it’s much harder to get away with being an idea stealing tool bag since the internet has competent archivers, sans working under a company that owns anything you make.
As in turns out, Watson and Crick may not have actually stolen anything from Rosalind Franklin after all. If you’re interested, I found an article I read regarding it about a year back. A couple of researchers provide some interesting info and context that make the original data stealing narrative less certain.
Not really. The Pythagorean theorem (or whomever you want to credit for it) assumes plane geometry. It’s not true in general.
Plane geometry is the invention that makes all of the math work. The earth is not a flat plane (not even close to flat pretty much anywhere). If you want to do Pythagorean-like calculations between cities on earth, for example, you’ll get a much more accurate result with spherical geometry operating on geodesics. Unfortunately, spherical triangles not obey the Pythagorean theorem!
It was most of the Greeks. We credit Democritus with atomism even though the Greeks said it came from an earlier Phoenician, Mochus of Sidon. Even Democritus’s teacher doesn’t get credit.
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