Moritz Cantor

Quotes

• “For Egypt, in my opinion, the one fact of experience was sufficient that there was a right-angled triangle 4, 3, 5. Then Pythagoras took the matter geometrically in hand and proved the theorem named after him by ascending in ancient Greek manner from individual case to individual case, finally to the quite general theorem. (Cantor 1905: 70).”
• “[…] should it […] boil down to the fact that individual parts of the Sulbasutras are relatively modern interpolations?”
• “Therefore, we do not doubt for a moment that Pythagoras’ stay in Egypt, that the lessons he received from the priests there, were among the things that were common truth.”
• “So much appears certain to us, that Pythagoras could have been in Babylon.”
• “Some of the things, which belong particularly to the history of mathematics, we will not refrain from attributing to Pythagoras himself. Among them is the Pythagorean theorem, which we want to preserve under all circumstances. (Cantor 1880: 129)”
• “Pythagoras remarked, we think, that 9+16=25. When he made this under all circumstances interesting remark, he already knew, no matter from which source, the experienced fact that a right angle is constructed by assuming the measure numbers 3, 4, 5 for the lengths of the two legs and for the distance of the end points of the same. We have pointed out that the Egyptians and the Babylonians perhaps possessed the same knowledge that the Chinese certainly had (Cantor 1880: 153)”

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