Historical Events  Science
Pythagoras

Alternate:
Pythagoras created The Pythagoras Theorem

Current:
Pythagoras did not create The Pythagoras Theorem

Hypotenuse squared

It sounds like a joke - who invented the Pythagoras theorem?

Certainly, the name popular today comes from the famous ancient Greek mathematician, but of course its the formula itself that's under question.

Most people who studied any level of mathematics at school would have been taught the familiar "square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the adjacent side of a right angled triangle". Or, perhaps more familiar, a2 + b2 = c2. However, the idea is wasn't known about before Pythagoras cannot be true, since it is referenced in m,any works pre-dating him by many years, and in several different situations too.

Babylonian Tablets

One of the reasons it's known to have existed far earlier than Pythagoras was the fact it was found written down in almost the exact same form, but with additional proofs of mathematical knowledge, such as the square root of 2, on 4 Babylonian tablets dating from 1900-1600 BC. It's even mentioned in the Indian Sulba-sutra, dating from 800-400 BC.

There are many proofs of the Pythagoras Theorem, one of which was submitted by a 12 year old boy in a collection of them, which ended up being published in a 1927 book, He went on to do some more work in Mathematics, and came up with a formula or two of his own - it was Albert Einstein.

Not much is known about Pythagoras. Even his image is said to be uncertain, although the famous sculpture of him was probably not too far off the mar for a person of his standing of the day. He's said to be the first mathematician, but again the principles he's known for in this regard were certainly known for centuries before his birth. Paradoxically, at the time of his life not much was written down describing the individuals themselves, and so with all knowledge of his being passed on by word of mouth, errors and exaggerations crept in with every retelling, until ultimately he became the legendary myth we know today. The attribution of the famous formula to him, and him alone, was almost certainly part of this process.