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Irrational thoughts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Marty Ross
Marty Ross*
Affiliation:
School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University, PO Box 28M, Victoria, 3800 Australia email: [email protected]
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Extract

This number arises naturally, of course, as the hypotenuse of a right triangle with legs of length 1. Notoriously, √2 was found to be irrational by the Pythagoreans in around 500 BC. Their mathematics and philosophy was based upon natural numbers and small number ratios, and thus this discovery would have been very troubling: the Pythagoreans wouldn’t be the only ones to react badly to the imposition of the irrational.

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 88 , Issue 511 , March 2004 , pp. 68 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2004

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References

1. Van der Waerden, B. L. Science Awakening (1st edn), P. Noordhoff (1961).Google Scholar
2. Burkett, Walter Love and science in ancient Pythagoreanism, Harvard University Press (1972).Google Scholar
3. Brezinski, C. History of continued fractions and Podé approximants, Springer (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar