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Oh how can you skip the most fun tale of them all. [1] Its authenticity is dubious, but there's probably at least parts of truth in it. In a nutshell, Pythagora
by somenameforme 3y ago
Oh how can you skip the most fun tale of them all. [1] Its authenticity is dubious, but there's probably at least parts of truth in it. In a nutshell, Pythagoras started a cult based around numbers, and the pseudo-divine purity of rational numbers - of which everything can be represented.
Hippasus, a member of said cult, however managed to compellingly demonstrate that the square root of 2 could not be a rational number. Pythagorus tried to swear him to silence. When that did no twork, he had him killed. Over the square root of 2.
[1] - https://sciencefocus.ust.hk/the-square-root-of-two-at-the-cost-of-a-life https://sciencefocus.ust.hk/the-square-root-of-two-at-the-co...
- dmoo 3y agoThat seems irrational…
- seasox 3y agoAt least he kept his cult real
- scarmig 3y agoIt seems pretty limiting for a cult, though. You can't count all the members he left out of it.
- continuitylimit 3y agowell, if this cult doesn’t work out for you there is always reddit.com with less “limitations” ..
- mjhay 3y agoSounds like a complex situation.
- mayd 3y agoMost would call it surreal.
- selcuka 3y agoI believe the whole story is imaginary.
- jaredsohn 3y agoor at least more complex than described
- r13a 3y agoUnless the story has some transcendental meaning ...
- Cyphase 3y agoOnly if you're primed to see that.
- nopurpose 3y agoDon't you think this discussion is tangental to the topic?
- brutusborn 3y agoDiscussing the history of Pythagoras under an article on the history of his most famous theorem? I think you have a very high bar for relevance.
- throwaway167 3y agoDo you assume a point exists?
- nopurpose 3y agoYou are free to make approximation like that. Really, whatever floats your boat.
- Cyphase 3y ago
- botanical 3y agoThe wiki page says he drowned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus
- moshun 3y agowas drowned was the version I heard in school.
- frankplow 3y agoIt also says “one writer even has Pythagoras himself "to his eternal shame" sentencing Hippasus to death by drowning, for showing "that 2√2 is an irrational number”.”
- tjbiddle 3y agoIt says he drowned... assumed because of the reason OP gave. Besides, moot point giving you're referencing Wikipedia to begin with. > Hippasus is sometimes credited with the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers, following which he was drowned at sea. Pythagoreans preached that all numbers could be expressed as the ratio of integers, and the discovery of irrational numbers is said to have shocked them. However, the evidence linking the discovery to Hippasus is unclear. > Pappus merely says that the knowledge of irrational numbers originated in the Pythagorean school, and that the member who first divulged the secret perished by drowning.
- dr_dshiv 3y agoI don’t know of any ancient sources claiming that Pythagoras killed Hippasus. Seems unlikely to me! In any case, Hippasus was a fascinating figure: “Aristoxenus (Fr. 90 Wehrli = DK I 109. 31 ff.) reports that Hippasus prepared four bronze disks of equal diameters, whose thicknesses were in the given ratios, and it is true that, if free hanging disks of equal diameter are struck, the sound produced by, e.g., a disk half as thick as another will be an octave apart from the sound produced by the other disk (Burkert 1972a, 377). Hippasus, thus, may be the first person to devise an experiment to show that a physical law can be expressed mathematically (Zhmud 2012a, 310).” [1] Also in [2] this experiment is claimed to be the first documented scientific experiment in history. After all, Hippasus took a mathematical model for a physical phenomenon (how consonance relates to the mathematical ratios of a musical string) and tests the generalization of that model in a another physical medium (viz. bronze chimes with the same ratios 1:2 and 2:3 make the octave and fifth). I wish they’d put this stuff in elementary math books when kids learn about Pythagoras. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoreanism/#hippasus https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoreanism/#hippasus [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240587262200003X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240587262...
- detourdog 3y agoone of my goals is a collection of educational activities based on the ground breaking earlier discoveries. Such as this.
- darkerside 3y agoI'm pretty confused. How do you think an average 8 year old would feel?
- dr_dshiv 3y agoWell, they continue to introduce Pythagorean theorem through many stages of elementary math, so 8 is pretty early. But.. here could be a section of a textbook: Pythagoras & The Pythagoreans: Mathematics, Music, and Mystery Pythagoras was an ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher who lived around 500 BC. He traveled widely and gathered knowledge from diverse cultures, like Egypt. He also founded his own school of men and women in Italy. There, he taught that numbers held the key to understanding the whole universe. Pythagoras is best known for the Pythagorean theorem. Fun Fact! There are stories that when Pythagoras discovered his famous theorem, he celebrated in a big way. Some say he sacrificed 100 oxen, while others claim it was just an ox made of flour. The Pythagoreans were famously vegetarian, so what do you think? Math & Music: Pythagoreans explored the relationship between math and music. They discovered that musical notes have mathematical relationships. Hippasus, a member of the Pythagorean community, used bronze disks to show that musical notes are connected to mathematical ratios. This is considered one of the first scientific experiments! Activity: Using a stringed instrument, like a guitar, try plucking the strings when pressing at 1/2 the string or 2/3s the string. Try different fractions. Can you hear the mathematical relationships in the sounds?
- imjonse 3y agoPythagoras definitely did not have him killed since he had been dead for ~50 years. So even if the story is true it is about Pythagoreans, the followers of Pythagoras.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hnuser123456 3y ago4/1-4/3+4/5-4/7+4/9...
- HideousKojima 3y agoTIL Terrence Howard is secretly a member of Pythagoras' math cult: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/terrence-howard-thinks-1x1-2-has-a-secret-system-called-terryology-and-spends-17-hours-a-day-making-nameless-plastic-structures-10502365.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/terrence-howard-th... "How can it equal one? If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what's the square root of two? Should be one, but we're told its two, and that cannot be."
- adolph 3y agoBut his success has not stopped the actor from claiming he spends up to 17 hours a day creating nameless plastic structures, which are made of cut up pieces of plastic and either stitched together with copper wire or soldered, that he believes prove his new form of mathematics. Howard studied chemical engineering at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn until he fell out with one of his professors over the answer to the 1x1=1 conundrum.