Labienus

I picked Cyrus the Great because he founded the biggest empire of antiquity.

Lord_of_Gauda

But pythagoras did not invent the theorem- he merely proved it in geometric form. The existence of pythagoran triples, ie, squares of two numbers equalling squares of a third number ( and the square root inverse) was known to ancient Indians and even earlier, to ancient babylonians.
As such, proving it geometrically does not radically change its uses or its context.

For this thread, it is easily Buddha or Confucious- their influence in the world today is seen in the lives of billions of people. Others, come a very distant third.

Thessalonian

Pythagoras is still the first individual who is credited with the proof of the theorem, because a Babylonian tablet is not really an individual, is he? Just like most ancient known individuals (mathematicians) were Greek.
Regarding the idea of ancient Egyptian mathematicians who taught the Greeks, it was Herodotus' idea which was dismissed by later ancient historians as Herodotus' assumptions. After all, Herodotus was not the most accurate historian ever. Much of his writings is based upon rumours that he heard.

sylla1

You must be kidding; the Babylonian tablet didn't write itself, irrespectively if we don't know the name of the individual(s) that did write it .

That said, there are still plenty of good reasons to select Pythagoras Mnesarchou (?) of Samos as one of the most influential humans ever.

Thessalonian

We don't know who wrote the tablet though. Was it written by a Babylonian? How do we know that? What if it was an Assyrian or Sumerian? How do we know that it was found in the same place that was written? We only speculate regarding the author of the tablet. The same goes for the ancient Egyptian priests that no one ever heard of, who taught some basic geometry to Thales, according to some sources, although other sources do not state anything.

I will start a thread, examining how much the ancient Greeks really learnt from other ancient civilizations. Things are never as simple as they seem to be. I will not speculate though. I will use ancient sources only.

Alcibiades

You know,I thought that he,along with Buddha would dominate this poll.Huh?
Alcibiades