Read Euclid backwards: history and purpose of Pythagorean Theorem

Opinionated History of Mathematics by Intellectual Mathematics

Jul 30, 202041:37Science & Medicine

The Pythagorean Theorem might have been used in antiquity to build the pyramids, dig tunnels through mountains, and predict eclipse durations, it has been said. But maybe the main interest in the theorem was always more...

Related Episodes

Continue listening to more episodes from Opinionated History of Mathematics.

Death of Archimedes

Jul 15, 2025 - 26:21

Archimedes’s emblematic death makes sense psychologically and embodies a rich historical picture in a sin...

Torricelli’s trumpet is not counterintuitive

Dec 30, 2024 - 56:39

There is nothing counterintuitive about an infinite shape with finite volume, contrary to the common prop...

Did Copernicus steal ideas from Islamic astronomers?

Nov 29, 2023 - 1:27:04

Copernicus’s planetary models contain elements also found in the works of late medieval Islamic astronome...

Operational Einstein: constructivist principles of special relativity

Jul 23, 2023 - 1:16:38

Einstein’s theory of special relativity defines time and space operationally, that is to say, in terms of...

Review of Netz’s New History of Greek Mathematics

Oct 11, 2022 - 52:04

Reviel Netz’s New History of Greek Mathematics contains a number of factual errors, both mathematical and...

The “universal grammar” of space: what geometry is innate?

May 20, 2022 - 32:22

Geometry might be innate in the same way as language. There are many languages, each of which is an equal...

“Repugnant to the nature of a straight line”: Non-Euclidean geometry

Feb 20, 2022 - 30:40

The discovery of non-Euclidean geometry in the 19th century radically undermined traditional conceptions...

Rationalism 2.0: Kant’s philosophy of geometry

Nov 17, 2021 - 30:00

Kant developed a philosophy of geometry that explained how geometry can be both knowable in pure thought...