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8212bfd2 | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @365dd660 wasn’t it pretty much agreed that some of the theorems were not his but attributed to him? He just left a more recent record of them, like most classic scholars.
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John Carlos Baez | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @f6878bd4 @365dd660 - very little is known for sure about what Pythagoras did.   I read a book-long biography of him which starts by listing everything known about him in the first paragraph: he was the son of Mnesarchus, a gem-engraver, and around 530 BC he travelled to Croton in southern Italy.  The rest is echoes of echoes of echoes.