Juan Carlos Orellana tells us in Hypertextual the story of Hypasus of Metapontus and the exile he suffered from the Pythagoreans when they found the failure of the Pythagorean Theorem to explain irrational numbers. An example that even in mathematics and science dogmatism can reign:
This group of eccentrics was satisfied since the theories that supported their arguments could not even be questioned. Well, at least it was like that until Hippasus of Metapontus realized something curious, he discovered through the Pythagorean theorem that it was impossible to explain the result of the square root of two: 1.4142135… A number followed by infinite figures whose sequence cannot be be explained by any rule or pattern.
He hadn’t realized it at the time, but Hippasus had discovered irrational numbers. This meant that all the bases of Pythagorean thought: unity, mathematical harmony, the belief that everything could be measured, etc. They could be questioned, that is, they were no longer rules but descriptions of specific cases. Since it is impossible to measure exactly the side and diagonal of a square.
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