Inventors Who Died Due To Their Own Inventions: The Irrational Death of Hippasus episode artwork

EPISODE · Mar 12, 2026 · 34 MIN

Inventors Who Died Due To Their Own Inventions: The Irrational Death of Hippasus

from Ridiculous History · host iHeartPodcasts

We all know pi, right? It's one of the most famous 'irrational numbers' in history, and mathematicians are still trying to figure it out in the modern day. While this may seem arcane to some of us non-mathheads, in today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max learn these numbers were3 once such a big deal that legends say folks got murdered for discovering them. Tune in to learn the harrowing tale of Hippasus, a Pythagorean cultist who discovered irrational numbers -- and, in doing so, pissed off the Gods so much that they drowned him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Mar 12, 2026

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Inventors Who Died Due To Their Own Inventions: The Irrational Death of Hippasus

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