The Cult of Pythagoras: Math and Myths

Martinez, Alberto A.

ISBN 10: 0822944189 / ISBN 13: 9780822944188

Published by University of Pittsburgh Pre, Pittsburgh, 2012

About this Item

8vo, 264 pp.

Seller Inventory # 114242

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Cult of Pythagoras: Math and Myths
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre, Pittsburgh
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822944189
• ISBN 13: 9780822944188
• Binding: hardcover
• Edition: 1st.
• Condition: Fine copy in fine dust jacket
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Mathematics

About this title

Synopsis

Alberto A. Martínez discusses various popular myths from the history of mathematics: that Pythagoras proved the hypotenuse theorem, that Archimedes figured out how to test the purity of a gold crown while he was in a bathtub, that the Golden Ratio is in nature and ancient architecture, that the young Galois created group theory the night before the pistol duel that killed him, and more. Some stories are partly true, others are entirely false, but all show the power of invention in history. Pythagoras emerges as a symbol of the urge to conjecture and “fill in the gaps” of history. He has been credited with fundamental discoveries in mathematics and the sciences, yet there is nearly no evidence that he really contributed anything to such fields at all. This book asks: how does history change when we subtract the many small exaggerations and interpolations that writers have added for over two thousand years? (Publisher)

About the Author

Alberto A. Martínez is a tenured professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. 

He is the author of Burned Alive: Giordano Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition (Reaktion 2018), Science Secrets: The Truth about Darwin's Finches, Einstein's Wife, and Other Myths (University of Pittsburgh Press 2011), Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein's Relativity (Johns Hopkins University Press 2009), and Negative Math: How Mathematical Rules Can Be Positively Bent (Princeton University Press 2006).

Prof. Martínez also has a new book about the political news media during the U.S. presidential election of 2015-16: The Media Versus the Apprentice: The Devil Mr. Trump (Saltshadow Castle 2019).