ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 651 A heated debate about a mathematical tragedy

Although this made Spisippus and the others feel a little frustrated, it inspired their determination to study hard.

In addition, what makes Spisippus and the others curious is that since the beginning of the Scholars Conference, there has been an endless stream of Dionian people coming to the college to listen to lectures. The entire college was full of people, and even Tulii had to send Soldiers entered the academy to maintain order, and finally the academy imposed a rule that "only people who come to attend classes will be given a fixed number of places to enter the academy every day." Even so, many people can still be seen wandering outside the academy every day.

Oleas once talked with them. Among these people were public officials, farmers, merchants, craftsmen... There were Thurii, but also people from Campania, Magna Graecia, Apulia, Sicily... And not only Greeks, as well as Lucanians, Brutians, Messapians... Most of them have studied in schools in various cities in Dionia. Even if they are busy with life, they are still hungry for knowledge.

From the questions they asked in the meeting, it can be seen that their knowledge level is not low, which surprised Spesippus and Oleas, because speeches and exchanges at this level are often Knowledge about the affairs of a few people was not widespread among the many Greek city-states, even as prosperous as Athens.When the annual Athenian citizen assembly elects generals or expels politicians, it is common for illiterate citizens to ask others to help them write on pottery tablets... The Dionians' pursuit of knowledge is so passionate that it makes them ashamed.

In the afternoon of this day, Oleas and the others hurried from the School of Philosophy to the School of Mathematics, because there was a lecture by Foster Kada.

This scholar's conference held in Dionia also provides a stage for young scholars. As long as their applications are approved, they can also give speeches on the stage, interspersed with the speeches of well-known scholars.

Of course, most of the young people who took the stage to give speeches were students from Dionia Academy. After all, they were more prepared and naturally passed the examination more often.

As a student of Dionysia Academy who was the first to know and have the best relationship with Spisippus and Oleas, Foster Kada also invited them to dine at the Christoya restaurant in the city last night. , so of course Spisippus and the others wanted to come to support him, and they were also curious about what Forstercada would say, because during the chat last night, he was always tight-lipped.

When they entered the venue of the School of Mathematics, Foster Carda's speech had already begun.

What they saw was a surprising scene: some spectators yelled and wanted to rush to the stage, but were blocked by soldiers, and some even threw stones on the stage.Foster Carda was surrounded by his classmates in the center. He spoke his point of view with a louder voice without fear, and at the same time wrote his argument process on the dark wall panel with a white pen made of limestone.

"What is the title of Forsterkada's speech?" Olea hurriedly asked the audience next to him.

The listener said impatiently: "On the existence of numbers other than integers and ratios of integers." Then he continued to listen attentively.

Oleas felt that this topic was somewhat familiar.

"Hipasus!" Spisippus reminded from the side.

Aureas suddenly realized.The reason why he felt familiar was that the topic involved an academic tragedy that occurred in Magna Graecia decades ago.

Hippasus was a native of Metapontum and a disciple of the Pythagoreans.When he was studying the regular pentagon, he found that its diagonals and side lengths could not be expressed by integers or ratios of integers.Then he discovered that the same was true for the side lengths and diagonals of the square.

So full of the spirit of exploration, after repeated verifications, he confirmed one thing: In addition to the ratio of integers and integers, there is a kind of number that cannot be divisible by an exact number. Cannot cycle.

He then presented his views at a discussion meeting with members of the school.

Members of the Pythagoreans panicked, because Hippasus's discovery, if confirmed and promoted, would overturn the statement put forward by Pythagoras, the founder of the school, that "everything is number, and one is the number of all numbers." The philosophical idea that everything in the universe comes down to integers and their ratios led to other members of the Pythagoreans imprisoning Hippasus and eventually throwing him into the sea and drowning him alive.

But the story eventually became known after complaints from Hippasos' family.

Oleas probably knew about such an incident and did not know the detailed process. But when he saw the angry protesting audience in the audience, he knew that they must be members of the Pythagorean school, and he couldn't help but feel sorry for Foss. Tekada sweated.

Foster Kada did not pay attention to the clamor of these people and continued to solve the problem on the siding calmly.

Spisippus stared at the wall panel, and he saw that the numbers and symbols used by Forsterkada were the "Davos numbers". It is said that King Davos was inspired by Hades and invented this "digital number". "Davos Numbers" was only popular in the Kingdom of Dionia at first, and later spread to other city-states through merchants, and was gradually accepted by the people of other city-states and even scholars. After all, it is too convenient and fast in counting and calculations. In particular, it eliminates the Greeks' troubles in counting large numbers, so the scholars and people here today can basically understand it.

Fostercada drew a square on a wall panel. He set the length of each side to one, and then he solved for the length of the diagonal. Ironically, Fostercada used Pythagoras. The Pythagorean Theorem invented by Sri Lanka.The result of the calculation is that the length of the diagonal becomes the square root of two.

Foster Carda then used the method commonly used by the Pythagoreans - proof by contradiction to prove that this number cannot be expressed by the ratio of two integers.After his successful argument, he continued to try to perform the square root of two.

At this time, he used an algorithm he called the "dichotomy method". Seeing that the entire wall panel was almost filled with writing, he threw away the white pen, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and turned to face the people in the audience. The audience said loudly: "After my calculation, the length of the diagonal of this square should be 1.4142... This number does not end. It will be endless and non-cyclic. It cannot be written as the ratio of two integers. Therefore it is not a natural number, I call it an unnatural number..."

"To shut up!"

"Bullshit!"

"Everything you said is wrong. There is no such number! What right does a little student like you have to slander the great Pythagoras? Insult our school of thought! Come down here and let us teach you a lesson. Dun!..." The members of the Pythagoreans yelled loudly.

Matikolis, the deputy dean of the School of Mathematics in the front row of the venue, stood up angrily and shouted sternly: "What are you making trouble about? This is Dionia Academy, not Tarantum! Soldiers, don't listen to the class seriously and make trouble instead. Get those stupid people out of here!"

Matikolis has the status of a patriarch of the kingdom.As soon as he said this, the soldiers rushed forward to arrest the troublemakers.

There was chaos in the meeting place, and a member of the Pythagorean School shouted angrily: "Martikolis, you traitor! I knew you would use the power of Dionia to suppress our Pythagorean School. , because you can’t compare to us academically! Originally, we came to Thurii this time to see what new ideas you had, but we didn’t expect... Bah! What kind of All-Greek Scholars Conference! I think it’s just shit!”

"Whether the All-Greek Scholars Conference is good or not, it's not your turn to judge!" A loud voice came from the door of the venue.

"Your Majesty Davos!!"

"His Majesty!!!"

……

Amidst the exclamations of the audience, Davos strode towards the podium.

Due to the power of Davos, the members of the Pythagoreans also stopped shouting, and a strange silence soon appeared in the venue.

Davers walked onto the podium, and Foster Carda saluted him respectfully.

Davos patted him on the shoulder lightly, then faced the audience and said in a deep voice: "This is a sacred place for imparting knowledge and exchanging knowledge. Swearing and fighting are prohibited. Violators will be punished. This is "Dionia" "Law", I hope you will not violate it, otherwise you will be punished by the law no matter who you are!"

"Your Majesty, we have no intention of violating the laws of Dionia. However, in such an influential conference, the Dionysian School of Mathematics deliberately chose such a topic to smear and slander the respected ancestor of our school, Pida. Gorath, wantonly attack the reputation of our school and destroy the unity between Dionia and Tarantum. I think this is not what you want to see... I hope that your majesty can take action on this matter. We should deal with it seriously!" As an important member of the Pythagoreans, Lysis did not make a fuss like others, but used his sharp eloquence to protest righteously.

"Your Majesty, listen to me..." Matikolis was eager to argue, but Davos glanced at him with sharp eyes like a knife, and he felt guilty and stopped talking.

Davos had previously coordinated the schedule of the conference. He generally knew the topics of speeches by well-known scholars, but did not understand the content of speeches by young scholars, because these were reviewed and arranged by each college.But as a former disciple of the Pythagoreans, how could Mattiklis not know the possible impact of this matter, and secretly arrange for students to talk about such a topic without informing himself? Of course, Davos would be dissatisfied with him because it might ruin such a conference that was not easy to organize.

If Hennipolis hadn't been anxious to go to the School of Liberal Arts to attend a lecture in the morning, Davos asked incidentally what the content of today's conference was, and Aristiras sent someone to the academy to inquire about it, and then came back to tell him He, he might not know until this conflict gets serious.

　Thanks to Yijian68 and Thirteen Cats for the reward!Your support is my biggest motivation for writing! !

　　
　
(End of this chapter)