Chinese Pythagoras

This article adds a very interesting level of nuance, in the sense that not everything in STEM is from a Western point of view. I really felt this while doing the project on solving ancient problems for our first assignment, when I found out the Ancient Babylonians already knew about the “Pythagoras Theorem,” which they referred to as the “diagonal rule.” From all the classes we have taken so far, we have learned a great deal about the colonization of knowledge in the Western World, and it is very important to acknowledge their origins. This makes a huge difference in the students’ lives, as this is a great step to slowly dismantle the colonist point of view of our curriculum. It must be inspiring and empowering for the students to see their ancestors being acknowledged for their work that was most likely stolen from them. Even though, as the article mentioned, it is also possible that multiple civilizations found similar discoveries, it is important to highlight the effort of other cultures to see their perspectives. Having multiple cultures is a beautiful thing, as we would see so many different ways to solve problems and build richer communities, so even in something as small as the origin of remainders, it is an interesting way to tie in different cultures together.

In terms of naming theorems after dead white dudes, I know that a lot of times, it wasn’t their fault. A lot of the names were a result of honouring their contributions in their respective fields, it is disheartening to see that most of the common theorems we use are named after white men. We rarely see scientific units or theories named after non-white people, but even if we do, we still miss out to credit ancient civilizations that are the giants we stand on. I purpose that everything should be named practically, like the BMI scale. Just by hearing body mass index, we would have an idea of exactly what it is about. Why name it “Celsius” when we can just say “Ent,” short for entropy, as an example. So as much as I like the idea of honouring someone by naming something after them, it is unfair to those who provided the knowledge way earlier in history.