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RobertLumley comments on Rationality Quotes April 2012 - Less Wrong
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Does anyone know the exact quote to which he is referring here?
I think it's this but I'm not sure:
Tell that to Socrates.
Given that they supposedly drowned people for discussing irrational numbers that seems false.
Sorry to have to tell you this, but Pythagoras of Samos probably didn't even exist. More generally, essentially everything you're likely to have read about the Pythagoreans (except for some of their wacky cultish beliefs about chickens) is false, especially the stuff about irrationals. The Pythagoreans were an orphic cult, who (to the best of our knowledge) had no effect whatsoever on mainstream Greek mathematics or philosophy.
Source?
Well, my source is Dr Bursill-Hall's History of Mathematics lectures at Cambridge; I presume his source is 'the literature'. Sorry I can't give you a better source than that.
Can anyone confirm this? Preferably with citation?