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Drakkith
Staff Emeritus
Pythagoras lived between 570 BC and 495 BC. His theorem, a part of Euclidean geometry taught in many high school math classes, states that the hypotenuse of a right triangle (the side opposite the right angle) equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

I believe this should say the square of the hypotenuse. Beyond that I'm uncertain of what may be incorrect.

jedishrfu
Mentor
And the Professor said anyone else?

mfb
Mentor
5:12:13 was known in ancient Egypt long before Pythagoras, and 3:4:5 was known as well. What Pythagoras found was the general pattern. Examples of rectangular triangles are not the Pythagorean theorem.

12:35:37 is more interesting if it can be shown that this was deliberate.

5:12:13 was known in ancient Egypt long before Pythagoras, and 3:4:5 was known as well. What Pythagoras found was the general pattern. Examples of rectangular triangles are not the Pythagorean theorem.

12:35:37 is more interesting if it can be shown that this was deliberate.

We regard nearly everything we know to the Greeks (Everything started with the Greeks). In my humble opinion, this is because we have more evidence from the Greeks than any previous culture. Its not like there were no others before them.

Sometimes I get irritated by the fact that we do not know really how much people knew before the Greeks. Maybe they knew Pythagoras theorem but there was no lift evidence for that, who knows, right?!

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Mentor
Yes, this is true of Physics as well. There were many formulas known to the ancients that were in common use in engineering that were later derived from Newton's laws. One such formula was the diameter of a torsion catapult rope where the ancients correctly determined that it was proportional the the cube root of the mass to be thrown.

http://www.s608324909.websitehome.co.uk/JohnMcCoy/Catapults and Cube Roots.pdf

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Svein