Subject: Re: [HM] earliest Pythagorean theorem
From: Dinesh Maheshwari (dsm@cypress.com)
Date: Tue Jan 25 2000 - 18:42:10 EST
Please refer to the article "The origin of Mathematics" Seidenberg, A.
Archive for History of Exact Sciences. 18.301-342
In the paper, Seidenberg concludes, that "Old Babylonia [1700BC] got
the theorem of Pythagoras from India ...". He also concludes that the
geometry and mathematics had a ritual origin and that the Indian geometry
predates Greek geometry by many centuries.
Pythagoras theorem and other geometry was used in ancient India for
the creation of fire altars with precise relationship between the various
altars. (The altars could be square or circular or a combinations of both).
The Sulvasutras/ShulbhaSutras, meaning "codes of the rope" by Baudhayana,
conservatively dated to prior to 800BC, is a compendium of aphorisms and
states the "Pythagoras", in the context of creating fire altars, exactly
as
"The diagonal chord of the rectangle makes both the squares that
the horizontal and vertical sides make separately."
Meaning that the square made with the diagonal chord of the rectangle equals
the sum of the areas of the squares created by the horizontal and vertical
sides separately.
Bear in mind that the re-dating, in 1990s, of the Vedas to 4300BC (based on
the astronomical observations in the RigVeda) implies that the ShulbhaSutras
have to be re-dated to around 3rd millennium BC.
Perhaps you are already aware that Thales, in words of Proclus 450AD,
"[Thales] first went to Egypt and thence introduced this study [geometry]
into Greece." Pythagoras too went to Egypt to study geometry and in addition,
was taken prisoner when Persian king Cambyses invaded Egypt and was taken
to Babylonia where Babylonians instructed him in their rituals, geometry
and mathematics.
Regards,
Dinesh
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