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.

  • @Smokeydope
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    1 year ago

    who curses pythagoras?

    At the very least that one guy who got drowned for blasphemy by the pythagoras cult, because he proved that the hypotenuse of a triangle with a base of 1 is an irrational number.

    Also to be fair I imagine more people are cursing Euler for having his name stapled to half of every theorem and proof it seems.

      • @raspberriesareyummy
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        11 year ago

        and the proof is very elegant - you could explain it to a (smart) elementary school kid

    • @havokdj
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      31 year ago

      Not gonna lie, that’s extremely comical and on par for pre-early modern humanity

    • credit crazy
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      11 year ago

      From what I recall from learning about who Pythagoras was as a person he really liked talking things out while sailing