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This is a meaningless statement. It took humanity thousands of years to come up with calculus. Now we teach the basics to high schoolers.

• mschuster91 5y ago
  > It took humanity thousands of years to come up with calculus. Depends on how you see it. During most of humanity's existence, we were hunters and gatherers, with simple and small societies - there wasn't much need for advanced math and there was not really a possibility for a society to feed a thinker. Only when complex societies like ancient Greece and Rome were possible thanks to early industrialized farming, there was a possibility for people to do nothing "productive" towards the society itself surviving but instead invest resources into advancing society.
  • adrianN 5y ago
    Ancient Greece was thousands of years ago. Some complex societies are even a bit older. For example the Assyrian empire started around 2600BCE, and I guess there are older ones still.
    • ido 5y ago
      Alexander the Great is roughly as distant from our time as the building of the pyramids were from his.