- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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.
There’s also the https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/about Obviously, losing a dimension isn’t great but still pretty cool
Didn’t all kinds of antiquities get destroyed in Iraq? Totally irreplaceable stuff.
As you alluded, probably common in many places. How sad.
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.
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.
Yea ISIS and other extremist groups like to destroy evidence of their ancestor’s greatness for some reason.
Lesser sons of lesser sons
I recall there was at least one location which was 3D scanned and photographed in detail before ISIS destroyed it, so at least not all of it is lost.
https://apnews.com/general-news-travel-arts-and-entertainment-dbca5e23519f44c4a881c9cd69f41cd6
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.
I wonder how many artifacts could be recovered if we could search all the rich people mansions…
Ok so
because understanding the history of our technology gives anthropologists a better way to determine what we were capable of in our earliest stages of civilization. because understanding the history of us is important to understanding who we are. do you really not see the value in knowledge?
another nail in whitey’s coffin. when will this woke history end
Pythagoras wasn’t white. 😎
I don’t know, this painting of him looks pretty white (please ignore that it was made in the 1920s by an American who had probably never been to Greece)
and another nail in whitey’s coffin. when will this woke history end
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.
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!
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.
🎶 They say Thomas Edison he’s the man to bring us into this century
And that man is me…
raise a cult
*cough* Elon Musk *cough*
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.
I feel like at this point I’ve seen this story in 1,000 year old reposts.
What a classic situation. Some hype man taking credit.
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
math murder cult = my new band
Send me a demo. Or hell I’ll play bass
Simmer down Hulk Hogan.
Right on brotha
“Math and Murder Cult” sounds metal as hell. I’d join.
I bet Pythagoras had substandard copper too
Pythagoras has superior copper. All other thagoras has inferior copper.
It always seemed weird to me that it would be formally developed so late. Like I’ve taken multiple trigonometry courses and can’t even define trigonometry let alone make sense of most of it, but the Pythagorean theorem is a purely intuitive thing everyone does regularly. The first person to take a diagonal shortcut while walking understood it. It should have been the first thing mathematics codified after basic arithmetic.
There is lots of evidence of the Pythagorean theorem before Pythagoras. The attribution of the rule to him comes centuries after he lived. So likely he worked on codifying and proving the relationship using the Greek deductive and axiomatic system.
the Pythagorean theorem is a purely intuitive thing everyone does regularly.
Excuse me, what?
It is if you needed to collect taxes and wanted a way to measure 📐
I take it you haven’t read Plato?
The first person to take a diagonal shortcut while walking understood it.
Taking a diagonal shortcut means that you understand
a + b > c
. That’s a far leap from being able to prove thata^2 + b^2 = c^2
.
I imagine it’s been developed and lost periodically, and some people are averse to irrational numbers. Greece just had continual credit in our intellectual pedigree (as opposed to, say, the Babylonians who had more advanced trig than the Greeks before them and the Greeks were aware of them in some ways).
I think you also need a lot of rectangles and squares to find it necessary. I imagine buildings, but even today a lot of materials are cut to fit (also, the building I am in is not rectangular along any dimension). Maybe legal rectangular plots of land? Idk
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.
I knew Pythagoras was smart but I never knew he invented time travel. So cool!
And he invented plagiarism too!
nah he probably stole that as well.
Poor poor Plagiar, everything he invented people stole and took credit for.
The Plagiarian theorem is a real bummer.
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!
Quick! Change all the textbooks to “clay tablet theorem”!
Why not call it the Summerian Theorem ? Or Arabic/Persian/Philistine Triangulation Theorem ?
People used to live longer back then, just look at the bible.
Cool but is there a better source on this than “I fucking love science”?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/jt.2009.16
This paper was sourced in the article
Wikipedia, Springer is even worse, the company of tabloid press.
“Springer Science” (scientific journals and books) is not to be confused with “Axel Springer” (Bild, Welt, politico).
But is from the same group, like Nestle in food.
No, one is Axel Springer (tabloid shit), the other is Julius Springer (science stuff, founded around 100 years before the other Springer), they’re not related.
No? As far as I can see they have no connection.
This is one of the reasons why we shouldn’t name things after people.
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.