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> you're not clear on how primitive mathematics is for Aristotle Completely agree, and to add some color: Aristotle lived about 100 years after Pythagoras, mea
by ARandomerDude 1y ago
> you're not clear on how primitive mathematics is for Aristotle
Completely agree, and to add some color: Aristotle lived about 100 years after Pythagoras, meaning in his time a²+b²=c² was groundbreaking material.
- TimorousBestie 1y agoThey didn’t even have access to algebraic notation (IIRC, an innovation of the Islamic Golden Age, a result of cross-pollinating Greek geometry with Indian arithmetic). So the groundbreaking material was that famous diagram of a right triangle with squares constructed on each side.
- fmajid 1y agoThey didn't need algebraic notation to see that water spouts follow a parabola.
- kelseyfrog 1y agoInterestingly, there is no actual reference to Pythagoras for this discovery until 5 centuries later, by Greek authors Plutarch and Cicero attributing this theorem specifically to Pythagoras. However, Pythagoras’ Theorem is often linked to the Babylonians. There are implications of the theory on a fragment of a clay tablet from Babylonia in the Plimpton 322, dating back to approximately 1800 BCE.