/sci/ - Science & Math

"The conclusion is inescapable. The Babylonians knew the relation between the length of the diagonal of a square and its side…”, explained mathematician Bruce Ratner in his paper.

If this was the case though, how did the clever calculation become so synonymous with Pythagoras?

Unlike his math though, there’s actually a surprisingly simple explanation.

During his lifetime, the scholar set up a school where he taught students mathematics, as well as other subjects.

Known as the Semicircle of Pythagoras, the group were educated largely by word of mouth with the knowledge then being wrongly attributed to the ancient academic.

With so few written resources, this continued throughout history until the equation became so closely associated with the Greek that people believed it was his.

Students would have also wanted to homage to their former teacher, which probably contributed to this epic misunderstanding.

“…out of respect for their leader, many of the discoveries made by the Pythagoreans were attributed to Pythagoras himself; this would account for the term ‘Pythagoras’ Theorem’,” added Ranter.

So next time you get this wrong in class, feel free to correct your teacher!

>>15784408
>For those who didn’t pass history class, Pythagoras is thought to have lived from 570 – 490 BCE and was renowned for being an expert in mathematics, astronomy, and music.

What they don’t tell you in math class is that he was basically an ancient cult leader and his followers were banned from Southern Italy after causing lots of problems there.

>ancient people discover basic math
>knowledge is lost across hundreds or thousands of years
>another group discovers basic math
>this knowledge is preserved
Gee, I wonder who the actual discoverer is.

Maybe I was just misinformed, but from what I had heard it was already held that the pythagorean theorem itself was already known since before Pythagoras, but he was the first to prove it. Am I 'tarded?

>>15784408

>>15784476
I thought it was some Egyptian dude whose name I don’t recall and that dude also wrote the first math treatise.

>>15784418


Here are some interesting sections on Pythagoras
"Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds"

Pythagoras finds wisdom in the underworld

And Hermippus has something else to say about
Pythagoras. For he relates that when he was in Italy he made a little chamber under the ground and told his mother to write down what happened on a tablet, indicating the time at which things took place, and to send them down to him until he came up again. This his mother did. After a time Pythagoras came up again emaciated and skeletal. He went into the assembly and claimed that he had come from Hades, and he read out to the people what had happened. They were beguiled by his words and wept and wailed. They believed that he was divine, and even handed their wives over to him, thinking that they would learn something from him. They became known as the Pythagoricae. This is what Hermippus says.
HERMIPPUS OF SMYRNA, AN IMPORTANT FIGURE in the history of Greek biography, worked in the third century B.C. (see also 45). This is a rationalizing ac- count of the shamanic practice of mapping descent into underground chambers and emergence therefrom onto the sequence of death, edification in the underworld, and return to life. Burkert (1972:155–9) suggests that the mother who slips Pythagoras notes is in particular a rationalization of his instruction in the underworld by the mother-goddess Demeter.

Pythagoras, Egyptian crypts, Chaldaeans, and mages

He was in Egypt when Polycrates introduced him to Amasis by letter. He
iii A.D.
Diogenes Laertius 8.3 Greek
learned the language of the Egyptians, as Antiphon says in his book on Men excelling in virtue, and he associated with Chaldaeans and mages. And then in Crete he went down into the Idaean cave with Epimenides, and in Egypt he also descended into crypts [aduta]. He learned the secrets of the gods. Then he returned to Samos, and, finding his homeland under the tyranny of Polycrates, departed to Croton in Italy. There he laid down laws for the Greeks in Italy and he and was held in high regard, along with his pupils. There were almost three hundred of them, and they governed the state in the best way, so that the constitution more or less was a true “aristocracy” [aristokrateia, literally “rule by the best”].
THIS PASSAGE DEMONSTRATES THE EXTENT TO which the shamans came to be perceived as sorcerers among sorcerers. It makes a general principle out of Pythagoras’s descent into underground chambers for some sort of mystery- initiation. In this practice it associates him both with other Greek shamans, in particular Epimenides and his Idaean cave (9), and with Egyptian sorcerers and their crypts (53–4). But he is also said to have derived learning from the other great sorcerer races, those of the Orient (43, 45).

Pythagoras’s range of miracles

Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchus came after these men. First he worked on mathematics and numbers, but later on he involved himself also in Pherecydes’s miracle-mongering. When a cargo ship was coming to harbor at Metapontum and those at hand were praying that it should come in safely on account of its freight, Pythagoras, who was standing by, said “Then you will see a dead body sailing the boat!” And again in Caulonia, as Aristotle says. <The same Aristotle> tells many stories about Pythagoras. He tells that Pythagoras killed a snake of deadly bite in Etruria by biting it himself. He prophesied the dispute that arose among the Pythagoreans. So he disappeared to Metapontum seen by no one. And while he was crossing a river at Cosa with other men he heard it address him in a loud and superhuman voice,”Hail, Pythagoras.” Those with him were terrified. Once he appeared in Croton and Metapontum on the same day and at the same hour. Once he was sitting in the theatre, and as he stood up, Aristotle says, he accidentally revealed that his thigh was golden to those sitting next to him. Other marvelous things are told of him too, but since it is not my intention merely to recycle material I shall end my discussion here.
THIS PASSAGE SUMMARIZES PYTHAGORAS’S extraordinary abilities; Lucian could apply the term “sorcery” to them (goêteia; Bion Prasis 2). Among these abilities bilocation is of particular interest; see 5, where, however, the bilocation is said to have taken place between Metapontum and Tauromenium. The neo-Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana similarly manifested himself simultaneously at Ephesus and Thurii (58). Pherecydes of Syros, whose supposed floruit was the mid–sixth century B.C., was a traveling miracle-worker. He speculated on the origins of the cosmos and was a proponent of the immortality of the soul. He is said to have been the first writer of Greek prose.

Pythagoras, Salmoxis, and underworld mysteries

94. [The Thracian Getae] hold themselves immortal in the following way. They do
420s B.C. Herodotus 4.94–6 Greek
not believe that they die, but that after “death” they go to join the demon Salmoxis. Some of them call this same power “Beleïzis.” Every five years they choose one from among themselves by lot and send him as a messenger to Salmoxis, giving him instructions as to what they need on each occasion. They send him to Salmoxis in the following way. Some of them are organized to hold up three spears. Others take hold of the man being sent to Salmoxis by his hands and feet, swing him round and throw him up into the air and onto the points of the spears. If he dies from being impaled, the god is held to be propitious to them. But if he does not die, they blame the messenger himself and say he is a worthless man, and then they proceed to send another messenger. The instructions are given to him while he is still alive. These same Thracians shoot arrows up toward heaven at thunder and lightening and threaten their god. They believe there to be no god other than their own. 95. As I learn from the Greeks who inhabit the Hellespont and Pontus, this Salmoxis was once a man and was a slave in Samos, and he was owned by Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchus. He subsequently gained his freedom and acquired a great deal of money, after which he returned to his native land.

The Thracians lived miserable lives and were rather wit- less, so Salmoxis, who was familiar with the Ionian lifestyle and a culture richer than that to be found in Thrace (he had after all associated with Greeks and among these Pythagoras, who was not the feeblest intellectual), constructed a men’s chamber. In this he entertained the chief of the townsmen and feasted them well. He taught them that neither he nor those that drank with him nor their descendants would die. Rather, they would come to a place where they would live forever and have all good things. While he was doing and saying these things, he was constructing an under- ground chamber. When he had completed it, he disappeared from the Thracians’ sight and, descending below into the underground chamber, he lived there for three years. They missed him and mourned for him as dead. In the fourth year he appeared again to the Thracians, and this is how they came to believe his claims. 96. This is what they say he did. I myself neither disbelieve nor indeed place a great deal of be- lief in the stories about this man and his underground chamber, but I think that Salmoxis lived many years before Pythagoras. As to whether Salmoxis was a man or is some local god of the Getae, I leave the question open.

SALMOXIS (OR ZALMOXIS) IS ALSO HERE BROUGHT into an (admittedly problematic) association with Pythagoras. The imagery of underworld-descent and initiation underlie these details.

>>15784564
Hey, Zamolxys is mentioned in Plato’s Charmides. Socrates mentions him as an ideal king. He brings him up to make a (rather faulty) point about how you must have philosophical peace of mind and temperance in order to cure physical ailments which triggers the ultimate discussion of temperance in the dialogue.

bump

>>15784408
Triangle man
Triangle man
Triangle man hates particle man
They have a fight
Triangle wins
Triangle Man

Greekfags just imported all mathshit from asia. We know this.

>>15784408
>Even more annoyingly, it turns out the Greek perhaps wasn't the one to first come up with the equation

But we've always known Pythagoras probably wasn't the discoverer, just one who popularized a proof.

>>15784408
>using BCE
Dropped. Man up and use proper terminology, if you’re a sand nigger terrified of BC and AD just pretend they stand for something else.

>>15784408
No proof, no theorem.

>>15787359
The Greeks attributed the theorem to "Pythagoreans", not Pythagoras specifically.

>>15787383
>not using 2.5ka BP
ngmi

>van Halen did not invent tapping