Talk:Incommensurable magnitudes

Proposed merge

An incommensurable magnitude seems to be simply a less common name for an irrational number. Lets not try to maintain two parallel articles for the same subject. Fuzzypeg ★ 23:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article should be kept if it can make clear why it's a separate concept from that if irrational number, albeit related. The Greeks did not discover irrational numbers because they didn't know of real numbers as we conceive them at all. But they did discover incommensurable magnitudes. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The ancient greeks may not have observed that irrational numbers are in the family of "real numbers", but they did discover irrational numbers. Or at least according to the Irrational number article they did! Just because they didn't understand all the implications of the concept doesn't mean they didn't have the concept. Fuzzypeg ★ 05:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the two articles, it is clear that irrational number is of a higher caliber, and duplicates some of the content here. I think this could be merged (into an ancient history subheading?), but I think it is worth maintaining the concept of incommensurable magnitudes in that section. Adam (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily the Pythagorean theorem

You don't need to know the Pythagorean theorem to know that the square on the diagonal of an isosceles right triangle has twice the area of the square on the leg. It's easy to see without knowing the Pythagorean theorem. So maybe that passage should be rephrased. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]