The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras

Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by hdjjhhvvhga on Sunday August 08, 2021 @11:08AM (#28107267)

I believe sites like these do a disservice to the ancient knowledge of Hindu people. There were many important discoveries, some unknown to the West for centuries, and still not having enough exposure (when you read math books, they start with Greeks, then maybe they gloss a bit over al-Khwarizmi and then jump right into the 17th century to all big names, as if nothing was happening for over a thousand years - well, a lot was going on, just not in Europe).

However, some people exaggerate in the other direction, I'm not sure if this is just a Hindu thing or a more global phenomenon, but there is a limit of what you can explain using Vedas, at least as far as science is concerned. (Metaphysics is something different, but this a completely different discussion.)

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Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by Xplune13 on Sunday August 08, 2021 @11:50AM (#28107581)

I agree. As an Indian it is just sad that there are people that do this. The effect of such articles is actually the loss of faith in the real findings of those ancient people caused by exaggerated claims presented in these articles.

There are so many actual great things and findings written in those texts, but it seems like people are either in the ship of "Everything is in Vedas" or "All this isn't worth researching". The lack of interest in researching these ancient texts caused by these 2 extreme sides is disheartening.

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Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by newyankee on Sunday August 08, 2021 @12:27PM (#28107888)

Per this source, in their own words Fibonacci credits Indian mathematician for his series. There is a great deal of disservice done to Eastern sources in the history of Science & Mathematics which is mostly because modern versions of these mostly skipped these places.

https://trueindologytwitter.wordpress.com/2020/03/31/indian-...

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Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by Xplune13 on Sunday August 08, 2021 @02:34PM (#28108948)

No doubt about it. There are A LOT of things that aren't credited correctly in the modern world, but these articles that I referenced aren't helping the situation at all. On the contrary, they're worsening the state all these topics are in with their exaggerated claims which make people question the integrity of the real work itself.

There should be thorough studies about Indology (at least in far greater number than there are right now) without all these click-baity articles associated with it.

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Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by throw13579 on Sunday August 08, 2021 @04:38PM (#28109892)

A lot of math theorems might have been stolen / 'appropriated' from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_school_of_astronomy_and...

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Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by estaseuropano on Sunday August 08, 2021 @05:44PM (#28110398)

The wiki article you link states 1) no direct evidence of a link or that their ideas were known beyond Kerala exists and 2) they might also have worked off ideas NY Islamic scholars. Really not sure what the specific claim or evidence you have is to give credit for 'many ideas' to this group.

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Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by throw13579 on Sunday August 08, 2021 @08:22PM (#28111475)

Here's some evidence: "The Baudhāyana Sulba Sūtra states the rule referred to today in most of the world as the Pythagorean Theorem." "The Baudhāyana sūtras are a group of Vedic Sanskrit texts which cover dharma, daily ritual, mathematics, etc. They belong to the Taittiriya branch of the Krishna Yajurveda school and are among the earliest texts of the genre, perhaps compiled in the 8th to 6th centuries BCE." [1]

Note that the "perhaps compiled in the 8th to 6th centuries BCE", while still older than Pythagoras, comes from dating of Indian texts by European indologists. These indologists were funded by then-colonial governments in a then-colonized India with a view to advance the biblical worldview that the universe is about 6000 years old [2], which any reasonable thinker now knows is pure hogwash [3]. So Indian texts are, in fact, probably a lot older. I believe that a now-decolonized India needs to pay closer attention to its history.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudhayana_sutras#Pythagorean_... [2] https://www.letu.edu/academics/arts-and-sciences/files/age-o... [3] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/topics/resource-library-a...

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Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by Falandafa2021 on Sunday August 08, 2021 @02:27PM (#28108885)

Peter kingsley talks about this in both reality and a story that will pierce where you dive deep into the hidden connection between Pythagoreans and mystical traditions leading back to the mountains of Tibet.

The teachings of Falan Dafa also discusses this claiming that the earth and human civilizations has gone through cycles of destruction and renewal with the last period occuring in the time of the ice age where a small surviving group of mystics in Tibetan mountains managed to survive which matches up with the flood stories across cultures and recent scientific discoveries outlined by people like Graham Handcock.

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Re:The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythag... by dragonelite on Sunday August 08, 2021 @03:24PM (#28109355)

I don't think you need big cycles of destruction and renewal like those guys claims. Perfect example was what happened in Europe when the western roman empire disintegrated.

The whole knowledge transfer chain from master to student got disrupted. So much so that the institutional knowledge base got eroded and people forgot how to do/maintain products. Maybe because you a cluster of smaller empires no one could finance those prestige projects, without those big projects the knowledge transfer chain will also be disrupted.

This me just thinking up loud and accepting the shit I learned 10~15 years ago and haven't used in a long time have simple been forgotten. Human memory is extremely fragile, so the invention of paper must have been super important to keep those knowledge transfer chain going over the millennia.

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