Quote Originally Posted by neilbourjaily View Post
With all warmth, Marv, I too come from the DOW teaching/naming era. S-l-o-w-l-y, universities and colleges are addressing the matter. The finished outcome is unlikely to come until long after my bones have mouldered away, by which time the dark side of the moon may be colonized. And certainly there will be resistance along the way. However, newly discovered processes and theoremata are now more commonly named after the matter at hand and less commonly after their discoverers. Consider Dr. Einstein: none of what he discovered did he name for himself, though indeed others did eponymously name some of his theories.
Therefore consider Thales, as he too named nothing after himself, and know you have mooted your own argument.

Per Wikipedia:

It is generally attributed to Thales of Miletus, but it is sometimes attributed to Pythagoras.

History

Thales of Miletus (early 6th century BC) is traditionally credited with proving the theorem; however, even by the 5th century BC there was nothing extant of Thales' writing, and inventions and ideas were attributed to men of wisdom such as Thales and Pythagoras by later doxographers based on hearsay and speculation.[2][3] Reference to Thales was made by Proclus (5th century AD), and by Diogenes Laėrtius (3rd century AD) documenting Pamphila's (1st century AD) statement that Thales "was the first to inscribe in a circle a right-angle triangle".[4]