Pythagorean Theorem

By kasey.fritz4
  • 1800 BCE

    Babylonian Tablets

    Clay tablets (Plimpton 322, Yale Tablet, Susa Tablet and Tell Dhibayi
    Tablet) were found around 1800 BC (1900 BC-1600 BC) that show some understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem. These proved that Babylonains knew how to find the square root of a number and find the diagonal of a square. It also showed some knowledge of the Pythagorean Triples (Maor, 2007).
  • 1650 BCE

    Egyptians Rhind Papyrus and 12 Knots

    The Rhind Papyrus is a book of 84 problems including 5 specifically about the Egyptian pyramids. There is no indication that they knew the Pythagorean Theorem, but they did construct a right triangle with a string using 3 + 4 + 5 = 12 knots (Maor, 2007).
  • 1100 BCE

    Chou pei Suan Ching

    Chou pei Suan Ching is one of the most famous Chinese texts that includes problems offering evidence of the knowledge
    of right triangles (Swetz, F. J., & Kao, T. I., 1977).
  • 600 BCE

    Shulba Sutras

    In India, around 800-500 BCE, there are writings about discovering the Pythagorean Theorem and Pythagorean Triples (Worddisk, 2020).
  • 600 BCE

    Pythagora's Following and Contributions

    In the 6th century BC, Pythagoras created a strong following that focused on the study of rational and perfect numbers. He also came up with the idea of a proof (Huffman, 2018).
  • 570 BCE

    Pythagoras' Birth

    (Huffman, 2018)
  • 475 BCE

    Pythagoras' Death

    (Huffman, 2018)
  • 300 BCE

    First Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

    In Euclid's book, "The Elements", there are 2 proof of the Pythagorean Theorem (Ratner, 2009).
  • 305

    Life of Pythagoras

    Diogenes Laertius (ca. 200–250 CE) and Porphyry (ca. 234–305 CE) about Pythagoras about 800 years after his death. It focused on the way of life established by Pythagoras for his followers. It was an exaggeration about his accomplishments (Huffman, 2018).