this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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[–] GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca 131 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

What I would like to know is if tablets like this are being scanned digitally into three dimensions so that they can be reproduced. I feel like everything we find from antiquity needs to be scanned this way. With humans constantly going to war destroying history, I'd hate the idea of losing things like this forever.

UPDATE: And thus a journey down the interwebs rabbit hole begins. I need better internet and PC to check this out more later, but answering my own question, here's the entrance to the rabbit hole should others wish to venture with a few examples:

[–] lemmingnosis@lemmy.world 35 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Didn’t all kinds of antiquities get destroyed in Iraq? Totally irreplaceable stuff.

As you alluded, probably common in many places. How sad.

[–] GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca 25 points 6 months ago

Most recently I remember it happening really really badly within Syria. Very intentional destruction. But yes, it happens all the time--Iraq included. With the technology we have now, we can preserve a lot of it (digitally at least).

I hate how it's so damn hard to find these things and yet so easy to destroy it.

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A lot was destroyed but a lot of it was looted and and sold to sleazy collectors. Remember when the guy who owns Hobby Lobby got caught buying looted artifacts?

Still horrible, obviously, but at least there’s some hope looted items will be recovered.

[–] nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 9 points 6 months ago

I wonder how many artifacts could be recovered if we could search all the rich people mansions...

[–] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yea ISIS and other extremist groups like to destroy evidence of their ancestor’s greatness for some reason.

Lesser sons of lesser sons

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[–] Klear@lemmy.world 100 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I knew Pythagoras was smart but I never knew he invented time travel. So cool!

[–] Pronell@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I took the opposite tack.

You ain't shit, Pythagoras! You just wrote it down, you didn't figure it out, you absolute fucking fraud. We're taking your immortality back!

[–] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Quick! Change all the textbooks to “clay tablet theorem”!

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[–] Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

And he invented plagiarism too!

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

nah he probably stole that as well.

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Poor poor Plagiar, everything he invented people stole and took credit for.

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[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 91 points 6 months ago (4 children)

This makes a strong case on the discovery side of the discovery vs. invention controversy.

Ironically, my dad idolized Pythagoras and the notion of discovering a scientific fundamental to be remembered for thousands of years, for which the secret is not to actually do science, but raise a cult of scientists who attribute their inventions to you. Like Thomas Edison.

[–] No1@aussie.zone 19 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

raise a cult

*cough* Elon Musk *cough*

[–] Jessvj93@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Edison, Watson/Crick, Musk, Jobs....I hope today it's much harder to get away with being an idea stealing tool bag since the internet has competent archivers, sans working under a company that owns anything you make.

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[–] kromem@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It was most of the Greeks. We credit Democritus with atomism even though the Greeks said it came from an earlier Phoenician, Mochus of Sidon. Even Democritus's teacher doesn't get credit.

Democritus wrote it down in a way that survived.

That's it.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

Not really. The Pythagorean theorem (or whomever you want to credit for it) assumes plane geometry. It’s not true in general.

Plane geometry is the invention that makes all of the math work. The earth is not a flat plane (not even close to flat pretty much anywhere). If you want to do Pythagorean-like calculations between cities on earth, for example, you’ll get a much more accurate result with spherical geometry operating on geodesics. Unfortunately, spherical triangles not obey the Pythagorean theorem!

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[–] canis_majoris@lemmy.ca 53 points 6 months ago (7 children)

Cool but is there a better source on this than "I fucking love science"?

[–] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 81 points 6 months ago
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[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 32 points 6 months ago
[–] billgamesh@lemmy.ml 30 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Cuneiform scripts were frequently coppied by scribes, so the theorem could be even older

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago (4 children)

A handful of people can be credited with discovering the theorem prior to Pythagoras, this isn't the first time this has come up, and incidentally there is almost no evidence to suggest Pythagoras did.

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[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 months ago (6 children)

I think that this theorem is at least as old as the pyramids.

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[–] Juice@midwest.social 24 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I thought it was pretty well established that Pythagoras didn't invent it, he was just the leader of a Math and Murder cult so he stole it

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 6 months ago

"Math and Murder Cult" sounds metal as hell. I'd join.

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[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I bet Pythagoras had substandard copper too

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 months ago

Pythagoras has superior copper. All other thagoras has inferior copper.

[–] Hello_Kitty_enjoyer@hexbear.net 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

another nail in whitey's coffin. when will this woke history end

[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 19 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Pythagoras wasn't white. 😎

[–] Wizzard@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago

and another nail in whitey’s coffin. when will this woke history end

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 6 points 6 months ago

I don't know, this painting of him looks pretty white (please ignore that it was made in the 1920s by an American who had probably never been to Greece)

[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 14 points 6 months ago

People used to live longer back then, just look at the bible.

[–] mukt@lemmy.ml 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Isn't this common knowledge that the Indians knew the theorem well before Pythagorus?

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[–] DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This is one of the reasons why we shouldn't name things after people.

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 7 points 6 months ago

This, and the fact that most stuff is invented by teams and not individuals. I think our tendency to name after a single person helps keep the hero/savior/Messiah complex of western society alive, and blinds us to the power of community and cooperation. It's like "individual-washing" the past.

[–] kromem@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

I feel like at this point I've seen this story in 1,000 year old reposts.

[–] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 8 points 6 months ago

And garden of eden as well as the story with a baby in a basket in Nil, are already in Atrahasis epos, from which Gilgamesh epos copied btw.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

What a classic situation. Some hype man taking credit.

[–] happybadger@hexbear.net 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

It always seemed weird to me that it would be formally developed so late. Like I've taken multiple trigonometry courses and can't even define trigonometry let alone make sense of most of it, but the Pythagorean theorem is a purely intuitive thing everyone does regularly. The first person to take a diagonal shortcut while walking understood it. It should have been the first thing mathematics codified after basic arithmetic.

[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 months ago (4 children)

the Pythagorean theorem is a purely intuitive thing everyone does regularly.

Excuse me, what?

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[–] Lukewarm_Tea@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago

There is lots of evidence of the Pythagorean theorem before Pythagoras. The attribution of the rule to him comes centuries after he lived. So likely he worked on codifying and proving the relationship using the Greek deductive and axiomatic system.

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