/lit/ - Literature

>>13635939

Once a square and the diagonal of the square have been drawn, one can ask about the ratio d:s of the length of the diagonal to the length of the side. If all things are expressible in terms of natural numbers, then one would expect that there are two natural numbers m and n such that d:s::m:n. But it can be conclusively proved that no such natural numbers m and n exist. The ratio d:s is irrational, nameless, apeiron.
In the mental movie we were just watching, Hippasus is letting Pythagoras in on this. One version of the movie’s ending is that when the Pythagoreans returned from their sail, it turned out that Hippasus had “drowned at sea”!