Inventors Who Died Due To Their Own Inventions: The Irrational Death of Hippasus
Ridiculous History
iHeartPodcasts
4.2 • 4.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Ridiculous History is a production of IHeart Radio. Welcome back to the show fellow ridiculous historians. |
| 0:29.5 | Thank you, as always so much for tuning in. |
| 0:32.7 | Let's hear it for our number one super producer, Max the Irrational Williams. |
| 0:39.0 | Max runs the numbers, the numbers guy, the rational Williams. |
| 0:44.4 | Yeah. |
| 0:45.3 | I have survived. |
| 0:46.4 | I am back. |
| 0:47.6 | Yeah. |
| 0:48.0 | You went on a, you went on a bit of a sojourn, didn't you? |
| 0:51.7 | I did. |
| 0:52.2 | I did. |
| 0:52.6 | I went to the, I guess it is a Midwestern state, but I don't really understand how. |
| 0:58.9 | It's sort of on the cusp, right? |
| 1:00.5 | Yeah. |
| 1:00.6 | Yeah. |
| 1:00.9 | It's weird. |
| 1:03.1 | It feels sort of weirdly southern in some ways. |
| 1:05.6 | But another way is it feels vaguely Midwestern. |
| 1:08.4 | What I was told is St. Louis is Midwestern, Missouri is Southern. |
| 1:13.7 | So it's interesting, guys. Oh, that's Mr. Noel Brown. Hello. They call me Ben Bowling. |
| 1:20.1 | It's you. It is. And, well, for legal and tax purposes. But I'm going even get me started on tax purposes. |
| 1:27.8 | I'm not going to pay this year, guys. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.