The Legacy of Pythagoras

The Triangles of Samos (1x1)

Air date: Jul 01, 2008

Part 1 of this series, "The Triangles of Samos", presents the viewer with the amazingly true tale of how ancient military architects, completely without the benefit of modern tunneling equipment, were able to dig an underground aqueduct starting from both sides and somehow meet in the middle. This tunnel on the island of Samos, over a kilometer long and bored deep below a mountain, is shown to the viewer as an object lesson in how the ancients of two or three millennia ago harnessed the knowledge of right triangles to improve the world around them.