It was arguably the mass shift to remote working sparked by coronavirus lockdowns which saw Zoom rapidly become a household name – but now, three years later, even the tech giant itself is extolling the benefits of a physical office. The videoconferencing firm has now told employees who live within 50 miles of an office that they should commute in at least two days each week, in a plan due to come into force over the course of the next two months. The move to what Zoom calls a “structured hybrid approach” will impact thousands of employees at 12 offices across the world, including in the UK. A spokesperson said: “We believe that a structured hybrid approach – meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams – is most effective for Zoom. “As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers. “We’ll continue to leverage the entire Zoom platform to keep our employees and dispersed teams connected and working efficiently. Additionally, we will continue to hire the best talent, regardless of location.” The company was reported to have nearly 8,500 employees at the end of 2022, but like several other big tech companies was forced to let go 15 per cent of its staff in February, amounting to some 1,300 employees, as chief executive Eric Yuan took a 98 per cent pay cut. Zoom went from having 10 million daily meeting participants in 2019– a measure which fails to account for whether one person attends multiple meetings – to 300 million the following year, as social and working lives were pushed further online by health restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19. But the tech firm has taken a hit amid a push by many firms to get employees back into offices, with its share price falling from a high of $559 in October 2020 to $68, lower than they were prior to the pandemic. Mr Yuan faced a series of questions from employees who expressed frustration about the time and money they’d waste while commuting, during a tense meeting about the new hybrid policy last week, one employee who was present told the New York Times. The company currently employs more than 200 people at its UK office, and has this week opened a new office space in central London, which is being billed as “laying down the foundations for Zoom as a successful hybrid business”, according to The Times. Read More Young people are sick of working hard for no money – and are using social media to vent The pandemic missing: The kids who didn’t go back to school Amazon, Microsoft and Google investigated by Ofcom over ‘competition concerns’ Breaking the office bias: smashing the stereotypes holding women back

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For many of us, the mere words “Pythagoras’s theorem” are enough to revive pencil-smudged exercise books and desperate attempts to copy classmates’ work. And yet, it turns out the name that has struck dread in countless school kids over the centuries is about as accurate as this writer’s attempts at geometry. Because although it is assumed that the legendary Greek philosopher Pythagoras himself was to thank for the equation a2 + b2 = c2, it turns out it was being used some 1,000 years before his time. Archaeologists have found the equation on a Babylonian tablet which was used for teaching back in 1770 BCE – centuries before Pythagoras’s birth in around 570 BC, as IFL Science notes. Another earlier tablet, from between 1800 and 1600 BC, even features a square with labelled triangles inside. Translations of the markings, which followed the base 60 counting system used by ancient Babylonians, prove that these mathematicians were familiar with Pythagorean theorem (although, obviously, they didn’t call it that) as well as other advanced mathematical principles. In a paper dedicated to the discovery, data scientist Bruce Ratner wrote: "The conclusion is inescapable. The Babylonians knew the relation between the length of the diagonal of a square and its side: d=square root of 2. "This was probably the first number known to be irrational. However, this in turn means that they were familiar with the Pythagorean Theorem – or, at the very least, with its special case for the diagonal of a square [...] more than a thousand years before the great sage for whom it was named." And yet, one key problem remains unsolved: why did the equation become equated with the famous Greek? Well, most likely because Pythagoras wanted it to be. In his paper, Ratner points out that although the Ionian icon is widely considered the first bonafide mathematician, little is known about his specific mathematical achievements. Unlike his successors, he didn’t write any books that we know of, so there’s no written evidence of his work. However, we do have proof that he founded a semi-religious school called the Semicircle of Pythagoras, which followed a strict code of secrecy. As Ratner explained: “Pythagorean knowledge was passed on from one generation to the next by word of mouth, as writing material was scarce. Moreover, out of respect for their leader, many of the discoveries made by the Pythagoreans were attributed to Pythagoras himself. “Consequently, of Pythagoras’ actual work nothing is known. On the other hand, his school practiced collectivism, making it hard to distinguish between the work of Pythagoras and that of his followers. “Therefore, the true discovery of a particular Pythagorean result may never be known.” Still, he stressed, even though Pythagoras wasn’t the brains behind the most famous formula in maths, he does deserve a little credit for putting it on the map. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.