Construction of Right Angle by Stretched Rope/Historical Note
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Historical Note on Construction of Right Angle by Stretched Rope
It was been suggested by Moritz Cantor that the technique for Construction of Right Angle by Stretched Rope may have been used by the ancient Egyptians to survey their fields.
It is believed that they were aware of the properties of the $3-4-5$ triangle, and so this is a feasible hypothesis, but no evidence exists that they ever used this specific technique.
Despite the fact that there exists no evidence for this, it is sometimes seen reported as though it were a 'well-known fact', whereas it is nothing of the sort.
William Dunham hedges his bets in his Journey Through Genius of $1990$, and introduces this idea with the disclaimer: There is a tradition ...
Sources
- 1990: William Dunham: Journey Through Genius ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $1$: Hippocrates' Quadrature of the Lune ($\text {ca. 440}$ b.c.)
- 1992: George F. Simmons: Calculus Gems ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $\text {B}.1$: The Pythagorean Theorem
- 1992: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Puzzles ... (previous) ... (next): Squares Without Pythagoras