To me, it’s: That ancient people thought the Earth was flat.

We have records from around 430BC where Greek philosophers spoke of the Earth being a sphere. In 240BC the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth and was only about 2% out.

  • blindsight@beehaw.org
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    11 months ago

    In general that old math theorems/ideas are named after the mathematicians who discovered them.

    Pythagoras didn’t discover the Pythagorean Theorem. Pascal didn’t discover Pascal’s Triangle. Fibonacci didn’t discover the Fibonacci Sequence.

    • ianovic69@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      My curiosity was peaked so I googled for anyone else interested:

      The Egyptians.

      Islamic mathematician Abu Bekr ibn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn Al-Karaji.

      described by Indian mathematicians as early as the sixth century