this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
155 points (100.0% liked)

Science

12950 readers
5 users here now

Studies, research findings, and interesting tidbits from the ever-expanding scientific world.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A Babylonian tablet from around 1770 BC uses principles of the Pythagorean theorem, suggesting ancient Babylonians discovered it centuries before the famous Greek mathematician Pythagoras for whom it's named.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 51 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Basically nothing survived the millennia. The fact that so many Greek philosophers are known probably has more to do with the Greek->Roman->Medieval->Modern preservation chain than any special brilliance of the Greeks.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yep. History is written by the victors. And Western textbooks are full of Greek names. But when it comes to Eastern contributions..? Eh, let’s just call it the “Chinese Remainder Theorem”. They don’t get names.

It paints a real strange picture.

[–] magnor@lemmy.magnor.ovh 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

In France most curricula go one step further and call it "the Chinese theorem". Talk about internalised racism.

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Internalized? I dont think you are using that correctly.

[–] renard_roux@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago

Institutionalized maybe?

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Anything not preserved on stone or metal will be lost eventually.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 11 months ago

Well, copying extends important things a bit; I don't think there's any original Aristotle copies. It's really easy now, so last time someone asked about future preservation on AskHistorians the experts were pretty positive on the outlook.

You can buy stone-like optical disks that should last forever once burned, if you want to make a time capsule.