this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
656 points (99.2% liked)

Science

13320 readers
15 users here now

Subscribe to see new publications and popular science coverage of current research on your homepage


founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 126 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 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 34 points 7 months ago (4 children)

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

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

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 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 12 points 7 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

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

[–] JJROKCZ 9 points 7 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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh man.

It's only recently that the idea of "archaeology" has been a thing. Before then there were only "antiquarians" which were just looters.

Often they had royal backers. There's a podcast series called "stuff the British stole"

There's pretty well documented instances in the 1800s in Egypt, and pompeii.

Honestly the amount of amazing stuff that has just been "collected" is just eye watering.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

There's also the https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/about Obviously, losing a dimension isn't great but still pretty cool

[–] Klear 97 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] Pronell 23 points 7 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 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Tylerdurdon 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And he invented plagiarism too!

[–] acosmichippo 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

nah he probably stole that as well.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 86 points 7 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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

raise a cult

*cough* Elon Musk *cough*

[–] Jessvj93 13 points 7 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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] kromem 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 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 7 points 7 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!

[–] AtariDump 4 points 7 months ago

🎶 They say Thomas Edison he’s the man to bring us into this century

And that man is me…

[–] [email protected] 50 points 7 months ago (8 children)

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

[–] samus12345 29 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] Wogi 18 points 7 months ago (1 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Good to know! TBH, I'm specifically excited to see it was present in the fertile crescent. I really like clay tablets.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (6 children)

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

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (2 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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

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

[–] unreasonabro 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

math murder cult = my new band

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] slurpinderpin 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Damn this is really cool. I always thought stuff like this must go back way farther - it's not like humans have gotten significantly smarter in the last 1000 years, we just don't have many records going way back

[–] paraphrand 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think it’s actually difficult for people to comprehend that we are no smarter than people from thousands of years ago. We just have all this externalized knowledge available to us. Along with our wealth of technology. So much technology.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I bet Pythagoras had substandard copper too

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes and also I have a hard time believing the builders if the great pyramid didn't understand it in some capacity either. They just didn't have symbolic algebra to express it the way we do .

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] kromem 11 points 7 months ago

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

[–] paraphrand 8 points 7 months ago

What a classic situation. Some hype man taking credit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 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.

[–] affiliate 5 points 7 months ago

people joined a cult because of this theorem. that must be awkward

load more comments
view more: next ›