The Pythagorean theorem is one of those things that also has its own importance as a prototype of knowledge that can be expanded. The third installment of the mathematician Paolo Zellini’s series
Il Pythagorean theorem It’s one of those things you study in school. He says that in a right triangle the square constructed on the hypotenuse is equal to sum of the square built on puppies. So that’s all. Where do we find the demonstration of this fact? This is interesting.
Meanwhile we find it in the first book of the «Elements» by Euclid and also this proof that it is complicated as Euclid’s proofs often are. And they are demonstrations that often do not leave glimpse the roads that led to these results. So they are like gods crystals in their own right: they have their own perfection (they don’t always have it to tell the truth).
But very often we don’t understand why we study those things: why you study the Pythagorean theorem? The Pythagorean theorem is one of those things that then is discovery which also has its own importance as prototype of a knowledge that is possible expand in mathematics because then this theorem can be generalized to spaces of n dimensions and in spaces of n dimensions are considered much more objects complicated. First of all they call it the Pythagorean theorem but it’s not so clear that Pythagoras invented it, far from it. Indeed a lot likelyi.e. sure that the theorem was well known prima of Pythagoras: we have gods papers clear enough, well outlined, that tell us and tell us demonstrate that the theorem was absolutely noto before Pythagoras, precisely in Mesopotamia in the second millennium BC and in India.
In culture Vedicin Vedic mathematics of the first millennium BC for example – which is a very good point reference to understand these things – we have gods treated absolutely complete. In short, they have been translated into French and German: the so-called «rope treaties» explaining how to build altars of geometric shape, even of quite complex shapes. These altar they had meaning religious. Obviously one says: but what does religion have to do with the mathematics? Instead it has a lot to do with it. Because religion, the hereritual praxis, i movementsacting had to be something that absolutely took place exact. None were conceivable discrepancyno errors, none distraction and therefore mathematics went towards this need. In the more exact discipline then those who dealt with these things also knew that mathematics is not exact: very often the measurements I’m always approximate. This is something that has always accompanied the knowledge of the mathematician.
Paolo Zellini is an Italian mathematician, writer and academic. His latest book «Discrete and continuous» (Adelphi) came out last June.
– Here the whole series of mathematics explained by Paola Zellini
November 22, 2022 – Updated November 22, 2022, 07:21 am
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