Pythagorean Theorem Found On Clay Tablet 1,000 Years Older Than Pythagoras

What I would like to know is if tablets like this are being scanned digitally into three dimensions so that they can be reproduced. I feel like everything we find from antiquity needs to be scanned this way. With humans constantly going to war destroying history, I'd hate the idea of losing things like this forever.

UPDATE: And thus a journey down the interwebs rabbit hole begins. I need better internet and PC to check this out more later, but answering my own question, here's the entrance to the rabbit hole should others wish to venture with a few examples:

Smithsonian Institution: The Smithsonian has a vast collection of 3D scanned artifacts available online, including prehistoric tools and sculptures https://3d.si.edu/.
Europeana: This digital platform features 3D scans of cultural heritage objects from across Europe https://pro.europeana.eu/project/3d-content-in-europeana.
Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI): This non-profit organization promotes the use of 3D scanning for cultural heritage preservation https://www.culturalheritageimaging.org/.

Didn’t all kinds of antiquities get destroyed in Iraq? Totally irreplaceable stuff.
As you alluded, probably common in many places. How sad.
- Most recently I remember it happening really really badly within Syria. Very intentional destruction. But yes, it happens all the time--Iraq included. With the technology we have now, we can preserve a lot of it (digitally at least).
  I hate how it's so damn hard to find these things and yet so easy to destroy it.
- A lot was destroyed but a lot of it was looted and and sold to sleazy collectors. Remember when the guy who owns Hobby Lobby got caught buying looted artifacts?
  Still horrible, obviously, but at least there’s some hope looted items will be recovered.
- Yea ISIS and other extremist groups like to destroy evidence of their ancestor’s greatness for some reason.
  Lesser sons of lesser sons
There's also the https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/about Obviously, losing a dimension isn't great but still pretty cool

I knew Pythagoras was smart but I never knew he invented time travel. So cool!

I took the opposite tack.
You ain't shit, Pythagoras! You just wrote it down, you didn't figure it out, you absolute fucking fraud. We're taking your immortality back!
- Quick! Change all the textbooks to “clay tablet theorem”!
And he invented plagiarism too!
- nah he probably stole that as well.

This makes a strong case on the discovery side of the discovery vs. invention controversy.

Ironically, my dad idolized Pythagoras and the notion of discovering a scientific fundamental to be remembered for thousands of years, for which the secret is not to actually do science, but raise a cult of scientists who attribute their inventions to you. Like Thomas Edison.

raise a cult
cough Elon Musk cough
- Edison, Watson/Crick, Musk, Jobs....I hope today it's much harder to get away with being an idea stealing tool bag since the internet has competent archivers, sans working under a company that owns anything you make.
It was most of the Greeks. We credit Democritus with atomism even though the Greeks said it came from an earlier Phoenician, Mochus of Sidon. Even Democritus's teacher doesn't get credit.
Democritus wrote it down in a way that survived.
That's it.
Not really. The Pythagorean theorem (or whomever you want to credit for it) assumes plane geometry. It’s not true in general.
Plane geometry is the invention that makes all of the math work. The earth is not a flat plane (not even close to flat pretty much anywhere). If you want to do Pythagorean-like calculations between cities on earth, for example, you’ll get a much more accurate result with spherical geometry operating on geodesics. Unfortunately, spherical triangles not obey the Pythagorean theorem!
🎶 They say Thomas Edison he’s the man to bring us into this century
And that man is me…

Cuneiform scripts were frequently coppied by scribes, so the theorem could be even older

A handful of people can be credited with discovering the theorem prior to Pythagoras, this isn't the first time this has come up, and incidentally there is almost no evidence to suggest Pythagoras did.
- Good to know! TBH, I'm specifically excited to see it was present in the fertile crescent. I really like clay tablets.
I think that this theorem is at least as old as the pyramids.
- The recent "Fall of Civilizations" podcast talks a lot about the history of the pyramids. They may still have known a lot about geometery, but the slopes and angles involved in the pyramid building seem to have been trial and error as much as anything

I thought it was pretty well established that Pythagoras didn't invent it, he was just the leader of a Math and Murder cult so he stole it

"Math and Murder Cult" sounds metal as hell. I'd join.

I bet Pythagoras had substandard copper too

Pythagoras has superior copper. All other thagoras has inferior copper.

This is one of the reasons why we shouldn't name things after people.

This, and the fact that most stuff is invented by teams and not individuals. I think our tendency to name after a single person helps keep the hero/savior/Messiah complex of western society alive, and blinds us to the power of community and cooperation. It's like "individual-washing" the past.

I feel like at this point I've seen this story in 1,000 year old reposts.

Isn't this common knowledge that the Indians knew the theorem well before Pythagorus?

- Given what other comments are saying about him (cult leader appropriating works of others), I think the west/europe would do well not to associate themselves with him.
Yes and also I have a hard time believing the builders if the great pyramid didn't understand it in some capacity either. They just didn't have symbolic algebra to express it the way we do .
- There are mentions of pythagorian triplets in pyramid era Egypt, and in all fairness, ancient Greeks didn't have symbolic algebra either - it is a fairly recent form of expression.
  And, as far as I know, ancient Indians were actually writing mathematical expressions in full prose form - word problems et al.

What a classic situation. Some hype man taking credit.

And garden of eden as well as the story with a baby in a basket in Nil, are already in Atrahasis epos, from which Gilgamesh epos copied btw.

people joined a cult because of this theorem. that must be awkward

Ok so

because understanding the history of our technology gives anthropologists a better way to determine what we were capable of in our earliest stages of civilization. because understanding the history of us is important to understanding who we are. do you really not see the value in knowledge?

yah but pythagoras is the new bob