Slashdot Mirror
Stonehenge Builders Used Pythagoras' Theorem 2,000 Years Before He Was Born (techtimes.com)
According to a new book entitled "Megalith," which was released on June 21 to coincide with summer solstice, ancient humans who designed Stonehenge followed Pythagoras' theorem 2,000 years before his birth, around 2500 B.C. The theorem states that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the other two squares on the triangle. TechTimes reports: [The theorem] was developed by ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who was born in 570 B.C. However, Stonehenge was assembled 2,000 years before his birth, around 2500 B.C. This theory suggests that these ancient humans were smarter than what people give them credit for. In order to use Pythagoras' theorem, they had to be really skilled at geometry.
"We think these people didn't have scientific minds but first and foremost they were astronomers and cosmologists," John Matineau, the editor of the book, told the Telegraph. "They were studying long and difficult to understand cycles and they knew about these when they started planning sites like Stonehenge."
"We think these people didn't have scientific minds but first and foremost they were astronomers and cosmologists," John Matineau, the editor of the book, told the Telegraph. "They were studying long and difficult to understand cycles and they knew about these when they started planning sites like Stonehenge."
Pythagoras was classified as ethnic Southern European and non-white according to the KKK-endorsed Quota Act. Which also praised slavery as enlightened and beneficial to the slaves.
Déjà vue...
Did they at least pay him royalties?
That article is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever read in my life.
What would Benjamin Franklin have to say about the absurdity that Alaska, with less than a million inhabitants, has the same Senate power as California, a state with over 38 million people
He'd say, "Good". That's EXACTLY what the Senate was designed for... so that small states would be on an equal footing with the large states.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
You don't need to use calculations to have stuff work out for megalithic work. You just make a model in scale first.
They were genius at geometry, astronomy, but shit at everything else.
I guess that is not enough to increase life average over 22 years old.
Or, they just attached a rope to a stick in the center of the area they wanted to build on, grabbed the end and walked in a relatively perfect circle while designating locations to place each stone.
As long as they don't confuse feet & inches...
People were just as smart then as soon they are now.
I'm sure that many early cultures were aware of the a^2 +b^2 = c^2 relationship.
What gives Pythagoras the credit is that he proved it.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Did they find ancient carvings that included or alluded to the math involved? Perhaps some rectangular markings that were used for alignment? Someone buy the book and tell us the answer.
The Beaker people completely supplanted the original builders of Stonehenge. Perhaps they had deadly beakers.
What does this horseshit have to do with this article?
I would make sure the logs show this visit coming from FedEx Office
Pythagorean triple had been in use for a while back in 1800BC
I'm not saying it was aliens!
But it was aliens.
I know an ancient Tamil formula that seems to be Pythagoras theorem at the first glance. "Make eight parts of the running length, and discard one part, add to it, half of the altitude. What you get is the hypotenuse". Instantly one notes, there is no quadratic term. It is a linear formula, so it is not a general Pythagoras theorem. It boils down to "when two sides of a right angled triangle is 4 and 3, the hypotenuse is 5".
Nothing unusual. All they needed was an easy way to construct the right angle. That is all. The simplest way is the make a lasso with a rope ten units long, and mark off 3 feet and 4 feet, you can form a right angled triangle. If you make the rope hundreds of feet long, the angle will be accurate enough for the ancient construction techniques.
Egyptians had been using the 3-4-5 right angled triangles to demarcate land holdings after Nile floodings 1500 years before Pythagoras.
For aligning ancient temples, pyramids and other structures with East/West directions, the technique was ridiculously simple. Plant a pole, and mark the tip's shadow location at sunrise on equinox day and again the location at sunset. Line joining these two points is East-West. Use the 3-4-5 triangle from a 10 unit long loop of a rope and mark off North and South. Use plumb bob for vertical. You have a clean three axes Cartesian coordinate axes marked on the ground.
Dont get me wrong. I am amazed they can identify the equinox and solstice days, that they can predict eclipses, form calendars, They were as intelligent and smart as any modern human being. 5000 years is, but a blink of an eye, in evolutionary time scale. But let us also note that what we mean by Pythogoras theorem today is vastly different what they were using back then.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Stonehenge contains right triangles; the right triangles obey the Pythagorean theorem; therefore whoever built Stonehenge must have known the Pythagorean theorem.
But ALL right triangles obey the Pythagorean theorem (which is the whole point of the theorem), so this would be true whether the people who built them knew about the theorem or not.
Pythagoras was a damn WASP!!!
We had many high civilizations before ours, 6000 years ago the last one got destroyed, before that 12600 year, a high civilization got destroyed, probably large part 1500 years earlier too. So things like stonehenge, are just build upon structures already build before... What exactly the meaning is of everything, we can only guess. I wouldn't suggest giving the mainstream archeology a voice, it would be the same nonsense as they are telling us now about ape man, and people being hunters for 100.000 years....
Actually, Ben Franklin supported unicameralism and a single house. He had deep concerns about the Constitution but went along with the compromises.
But yes, mi is a troll and supplies a great amount of stupidity.
We think these people didn't have scientific minds but first and foremost they were astronomers and cosmologists
Pythagoras was a cult leader whose first tenant was "Don't eat beans." He believed souls of our relatives could reincarnate into beans. His followers claimed he had a "golden thigh", a euphemism for something close by.
This trend of calling anyone who provided intellectual contributions a scientist needs to end. At best he was a religious mathematician.
Well, why didn't they write it down and save Pythagoras the trouble of having to figure it out for himself?
The new book is by Hugh Newman and Robin Heath. Heath is a teacher of astrology. There is a difference between using the Pythagoras theorem in examples or realizing that there is a theorem. This difference is often confused. The Babylonians also used the theorem in examples. I have not read the book, nor seen any new evidence in the articles about the appearance of the book. There is a book already out since 2013 Duncan Lunan called Megalith. Lunan already mentioned the use of Pythagoras in his book. I would like to see what is the new evidence coming forward in the new book.
It was not the Pythagorean Theorem till someone proved it.
Pythagoras was born 570BC. Chinese mathematicians proved this almost 500 years earlier in the Zhoubi Suanjing/a and also other works.
This is merely a long line in giving credit to Caucasians for things darker peoples had done since centuries sooner.
That is indeed part of the design of the senate. I personally find it disturbing that someone from Wyoming has twice the representation in the House of Representatives and in presidential elections than someone from Texas, however.
"Wyoming is a U.S. state with two senators in the United States Senate and one representatives in the United States House of Representatives."
"Texas is a U.S. state with two senators in the United States Senate and 36 representatives in the United States House of Representatives."
So... what the fuck are you talking about?
Pythagoras sued them all later on.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The base of an igloo, which is essentially a circle, follows the formula Circumference = pi * Diameter.
After building several hundred igloos, I am sure an Inuit builder would have empirical knowledge that it takes roughly three times as many steps to go around a circle than it takes to walk the diameter. In this way, the Inuit builder would have a very practical understanding of pi without possibly ever defining pi.
Children may use 3-4-5 triangles in wood shop before ever learning about Pythagoras's Theorem.
Some woodworkers have a very practical understanding of specific right triangles without really thinking the maths through.
I would put the Stonehenge builders in the same lot. Lots of empirical knowledge, but maybe less so on the modern-day mathematical definitions.
I think they're all hallucinating. If I hold my cat up in the air her head perfectly blocks out the Sun. Coincidence?
All the knowledge that we have now has already been discovered many times throughout the past, only to get washed away when the world-changing cataclysms happen.
Probably he is talking about 1 congressmen per 500k vs 770k people. Or 1 electoral vote per 170k vs 730k people.
So you're fine with the Senate where a Wyoming citizen has 49 times the power of a Texas citizen, but hate the EC where the factor is less than 4?
I get that if forced to choose between two evils you'd rather burn the constitution than suffer a Trump presidency, but you should try to at least make the *appearance* of consistency.
Great! So if my state breaks up into three or four states, we can multiply our representation.
Knowing one or two triples != knowing Pythagoras Theorem.
BTW in case the article doesn't give details, they think they see the 5-12-13 triple in a rectangle made by two stones and two mounds. The chance of a coincidence is pretty high IMO because there are stones and mounds all over the place. One thing is certain, however, they were quite skilled astronomers. So sophisticated mathematics is not entirely out of the question.
Great! So if my state breaks up into three or four states, we can multiply our representation.
Yes. That's how our country works.
Of course California won't break up into three or four states. Unless some serious gerrymandering of the lines happened, all but one would be red. The vast majority of democratic voters come from just a few counties. Any reasonable way (and most unreasonable ways) of splitting the rest of the state would result in republican domination in all other areas.
It's the same reason why people complain when the electoral college fails to equal the popular vote, but no one that has power in California is willing to go straight representation in the state. Republicans would get votes if it weren't for winner takes all.
The article says that even though they didn't write, didn't build houses, didn't settle, didn't have a common language, the builders of stonehenge were fine mathematicians and geographers and were able to set up giant right-angled triangles on a geographic scale. And this huge knowledge didn't reach us because it was destroyed... by Christians.
Galanty Miller is a long-time contributing writer for the Onion News Network.
So.... Satire, maybe? I can't figure it out. Poe's Law applies.
I really don't see this being far removed from what is being suggested by the article, that standing stones in the British Isles are positioned in a way which is pythagorean. There are hundreds of standing stone circles all over the isles. It would not be hard to cherry pick some of them and shoehorn the hypothesis into. It's the sort of pseudo archeological garbage that Graham Hancock has been doing for years.
Well, then only one of those three or four states would represent you. The others would become different states representing themselves. Ideology doesn't have a perfect uniform distribution in space, so your plan could easily backfire and have you end up with less representation than you started.
He'd say, "Good". That's EXACTLY what the Senate was designed for... so that small states would be on an equal footing with the large states.
This is just it. Democracy comes in various flavours. Some representational, some direct, some are tyranny of the minority, but all were designed with a very specific purpose and end goal.
Personally I hate the system in the USA, but there sure is no arguing against the reasons for its creation. There is only arguing if its design was ultimately in the best interest of the people, and in this case that argument depends entirely on which people you are talking about.
Did you read the article? There's absolutely nothing in it, so, whatever...
Oh, there's one thing in it. This priceless quote:
Heath also contends that the ancient humans who built Stonehenge likely used a rope or another object to represent a time period as it relates to the sun and the moon. He says that this is where the phrase "a length of time" originates from.
If that's the quality of the math in the book then Pythagoras can sleep soundly tonight.
No sig today...
That article is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever read in my life.
What would Benjamin Franklin have to say about the absurdity that Alaska, with less than a million inhabitants, has the same Senate power as California, a state with over 38 million people
He'd say, "Good". That's EXACTLY what the Senate was designed for... so that small states would be on an equal footing with the large states.
I can't comment on what Benjamin Franklin would have said then or now; however, it's worth noting that the US is a very different place than it was when the constitution was made.
Look at the name of the US- it's the United STATES; not the United PROVINCES. At the time of founding the states were viewed as... well, states aka NATIONS, not provinces. This was a coming together of different nations to become one. The original US was more of a confederacy than a single nation. Obviously over time the US has become a more united single country and states are now treated more like regions or provinces than independent countries.
Giving states equal footing in the senate was to prevent little states being bullied by larger states. (in the UN today, all countries get one representative and one vote despite some being larger than others).
Now that the US is almost universally agreed as one single country the idea that small states need protection is perhaps not as important. The two senators per state is probably an outdated concept- but I highly doubt it will ever go away. Small states wouldn't give up that extra power they have. I think 100 years from now you're more likely to see bigger states fracturing to give themselves more senate votes rather than see small states give up their advantage.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
You have unknown enemies that come from CA and NY? And they want to destroy your local Texas health care system? How, pray tell? By removing their ability to deny care and let people die? Do you have health insurance, because if you do you don't really have any complaints. If not, do you expect health care? The reason health insurance costs keep rising is because the health insurance industry needs ever increasing profits to make shareholders happy, and of course, bonuses. There isn't enough time to detail everything else that's wrong with the US health care industry, but it's definitely not healthy.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Ignore the small squares; the larger square demonstrates the proof using a variation of the classic https://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/...
Quick, someone test the asinine modern druids who claim religious rights over it, to see if they know the theorem.
Test the politicians who roll over and let it happen too.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Ancient builders knew how to use 5-12-13 and 3-4-5 triangles to make square corners. No one knows how ancient this knowledge is. But it does not imply knowledge of the Pythagorean Theorem. Pythagoras was the first to give a geometric proof of the principle behind these two triangles. It is unknown whether ancient builders knew or cared why these particular triangles produced a square corner. To claim that these ancient builders knew about the Pythagorean principle is unwarranted.
I'd like to think the Stonehenge builders were thinking so abstractly as to conquer up Pythagoras' theorem two thousand years before that Greek genius did, but I have my doubts. When building the Pyramid of Khafre (2558-2532 BC), the Egyptians would have used a rope with knots tied at intervals of 3,4, and 5 (Pythagorean triples) to guarantee a perfect right angle. Their use of concrete numbers aligns to the Pythagorean Theorem, but is not evidence they knew the Pythagorean Theorem. Similarly, the concrete numbers used in the building of Stonehenge do not prove they knew the general formula either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ6ky97LaBc
Actually, Pennsylvania's GOP tried their gerrymandering trick with the electoral college but failed due to the outrage over their districting. The state supreme court held it against them.
Meanwhile the vast majority of all voters in California are in less than 10 counties and most of those in LA County which even has more Trump voters than dozens of states.
Wait, so the ancient Egyptians used the modern (and arbitrary) British unit of a foot? As in 12 inches? 30.48 cm?
More like the British used the foot which is a universal constant of measure. The foot to the cubit represents the euler constant, if you care to take a look at it. Also, they used the metre, which you struggle to wrap your head around until you realize that if you take a 1 metre pendulum and swing it so that the arc is precisely 1 second (at the the 30th parallel for an exact second due to gravitational variations) you will find that the distance of the arc defines a cubit perfectly. Now you have a metre to cubit relationship.
Additionally if you take a cubit and add it to a metre it equals 5 feet, add a foot and you have 6 feet, which means you have a relationship between all three universal constants of measure. That defines the principles of the microcosm to macrocosm 5 and 6, which is what the land of Khem (i.e. Egypt), alchemy and Chemistry is all about.
Do the experiment yourself if you don't believe me. A weight, some string, a ruler and a stopwatch, it works anywhere.
At most it's a coincidence.
Except the designers of the great Pyramid eliminates that as a possibility. The base of the Great Pyramid has unequal sides, yet if you add two side together they equal pi*100 (in feet IIRC) and the other two and you get the same number.
Just how many coincidences do you need to have before you accept it as evidence that it is a deliberate act?
Or an alien conspiracy.
I would say a more reasonable explanation is that we are not the most advanced human civilization to walk the earth and that whatever happened during the Younger Dryas wiped that human civilization out. Is it also a coincidence that the three pyramids align to the constellation Orion at 10500BC when the Younger Dryas event happened? Have you considered that we are the survivors of that catastrophe - whatever it was?
As for Aliens, unknowable.
I'm sure there are constants such as Pi, phi, euler's constant, the golden ratio, and more that can be found in the pyramids' construction, as a consequence of geometry.
There are another eight constants in there in the measurement. Derived constants from other measurements include the speed of light and that isn't a consequence of geometry.
That in no way is proof they understood the constants in abstract. In fact there's little evidence they did.
If you look at the distance of the Great Pyramid to the 30th parallel you will find it is pi*1000. Divide the base by the height and you get pi. pi*10 is in the kings chamber. That's pi expressed four times, twice on two different edges producing the same number.
I personally think the Great Pyramid is a textbook, in stone. It may also be a warning that says whatever destroyed us can destroy you too because they knew they were a dying civilization.
But they were smart master builders and knew how to get a job done.
The GP is correct, though.
No, they were *Genius* builders. There is absolutely no way we could build that structure - we can't even figure out how they moved the stone.
You can do the alignments with the plumb bobs and shadow method that he said. In fact you can get an alignment with 1 degree of true north with the sun and shadows. We don't need GPS to for that.
Sure and you can measure my claims in the dimensions of the Great Pyramid.
Reference:The Great Pyramid
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I saw a program years ago on Medieval guilds and their practitioners. The program made the point that these were skilled builders who used many clever "rules of thumb", shortcuts, and highly practical algorithms.
However, and this was an important distinction, this craft knowledge was oriented towards "getting things done", with an emphasis on practicality. They didn't always know why their craft rules worked. The guild practitioners weren't terribly interested in math, or generalizing knowledge, and they certainly weren't interested in sharing their knowledge. Except for members of the guild, these were considered trade secrets and not to be talked about with outsiders.
Thus, some Medieval craftsmen may have had a working knowledge of Pythagorus' Theorem, without ever calling it that, knowing where it came from, or even understanding that it worked in all domains. If you were a stonemason, you might even think it only worked with stone, but not with wood (just as a simple example).
That's the problem with claiming the Stonehenge builders knew the Pythagorean Theorem. Do we really know that? Just because they employed aspects of such knowledge, doesn't mean they actually got it as a general principle. Achieving a certain outcome is also not the same as complete knowledge of how and why that outcome was achieved, or even possible.
Yes, it is for construction purpose. But when they were covered and "true pyramids" you did not see that concave structure because the cover was flat.
No. They are there to express information. pi is 3.14159265. The numbers are expressed in metres.
The Eastern Face base distance from your alleged construction line from the center is 115.1820912 metres subtracted from the height gives pi*10:
The Western Face represents a ratio:
which is pi/4. Which is then expressed *twice* in the angles. Look at my other post for yet more coincidences.
Of course the centre line of the Great Pyramid is pi*1000 (3141.5) metres south of the 30 parallel which puts it on North 29.9792458 and if you multiply that number by a million you get the speed of light., which is also expressed in an indirect measurement.
The chance of that being a coincidence is so extraordinarily remote I doubt you can express just how remote the odds are.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.