

Just be Glad You Aren’t Pythagoras’ Student… - MikeCapone
http://michaelgr.com/2008/11/15/just-be-glad-you-arent-pythagoras-student/

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randomwalker
Wikipedia says there are three different stories about what Hippasus
discovered and what happened to him as a result, and that all of these are
likely false.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus>

(I've met Simon Singh; he's a great entertainer, but he's the last person I'd
cite for something like this :-)

Another story I've read about the theorem was that Pythagoras himself
discovered it, and sacrificed oxen because it upset his world view.

<http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~demo5337/Group3/hist.html>

~~~
MikeCapone
Thank for the info.

I guess a lot of stuff from a couple thousand years ago are unreliable.
_cough_ bible _cough_

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unalone
Fascinating story. I think it's worth saying, though, that the Greeks didn't
have the same view on death that we do. For them, this world was brief before
an eternal afterlife, and unlike nowadays that was really firmly believed to
be true.

Doesn't make it any less horrific, but just a slight bit of context.

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blackguardx
I don't see how you can say that the Greeks were more devout than people are
today.

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unalone
They existed in a very primitive time when it was believed that gods were
responsible for everybody. Mathematicians believed that what they did, they
did for the gods. The belief system was very devout and, it it was still
around today, fanatic.

~~~
blackguardx
I find this statement a little naive. Sure, the Greeks had religion. You are
arguing that the Greeks believed more deeply in it that modern peoples? I
can't fathom that. Just look around you. In the United States, at least, there
are many devoutly religious people.

Sometimes it is hard to separate belief from custom. As outsiders, looking
back on the Greeks through their intact manuscripts, I don't think we can make
a judgment about their devoutness. Devoutness, after all, is measured only by
someone's internal deliberations, not his or her outward actions or
expressions.

~~~
unalone
But you forget the context of the times we live in. We have a world that
scientists have mostly explained. We have hope that the rest of the world will
be explained through science. We have reason to believe that. We've had
dogmatic belief struck down by courts time and time again, and we're
continuing to make progress.

The ancient Greeks were often brilliant. But they lived in an irrational world
in which nothing made logical sense. Look at their literature. Every story is
religious in nature. It's always about the gods interacting with people,
punishing people, getting drunk and screwing people. It's fascinating stuff
and I love it. But to compare to modern society, that's like if every single
story had God coming down from the heavens to help one side or the other. The
Greeks NEEDED God in their lives. We don't.

