4 ms·
I thought the Pythagoreans threw one of their members over board for proving the root of 2 to be irrational
by wolfi1 2y ago
I thought the Pythagoreans threw one of their members over board for proving the root of 2 to be irrational
- ants_everywhere 2y agoThis is a myth, it's covered in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus
- bandrami 2y agoThere's multiple stories about this; one of the better-attested is that for a time the brotherhood swore each other to secrecy (with threats of drowning) about it because it ran against the Parmenedian epistemology of the time.