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Researchers believe that the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles, who built Stonehenge, already knew and used the Pythagorean theorem, writes Success in UA.
More than 2 years before the birth of the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician.
It is believed that the first geometric proof of the theorem, which says that in a right triangle the sum of the squares of the lengths of the legs is equal to the square of the hypotenuse, belongs to Pythagoras, an ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician who lived on the island of Samos in the VI-V centuries BC. However, scientists have long believed that the theorem was used earlier by various ancient civilizations, reports cikavosti.com.
In the new book Megalith: Studies in Stone, the authors point out that the theorem was also known to the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles, who built the landmark Stonehenge, which is now one of the most famous megalithic structures in the world.
The authors made this assumption based on the geometry of Stonehenge. More precisely, the book states that in one of the earliest structures of the building, dating back to 2 BC, lies a rectangle of four stones (sandstone (sarsena) boulders) which, when divided in half diagonally, form perfect right triangles 750:5:12. In addition, as can be seen in the schematic image, eight lines emerge from the rectangle and triangles, indicating important events in the Neolithic calendar - for example, the points of the summer and winter solstice.
One of the authors even suggests that there is a giant Pythagorean triangle formed between Stonehenge, a place in Wales where the bluestones were probably quarried for construction, and the Isle of Lundy.
"People often think that our ancestors were rough savages, but they were also skilled astronomers," says John Matineau, the book's editor. "They applied the Pythagorean theorem more than 2 years before he was born."
However, it is known that the theorem on the relationship between the sides of a right triangle could be known in other civilizations, even before the appearance of Pythagoras. So, some scientists believe that this knowledge existed in ancient Egypt (approximately in the XXIII century BC) and in Babylon (approximately in the XVIII century BC). In ancient China, the theorem was also known, for example, its application is written in the encyclopedia of knowledge of ancient Chinese mathematicians, "Mathematics in Nine Books", dating from the 10th-2nd centuries. to n. there are.
