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[148a] and five and all numbers which cannot be formed by multiplying equal factors, but only by multiplying a greater by a less or a less by a greater, and are therefore always contained in unequal sides, we represented by the shape of the oblong rectangle and called oblong numbers.

Socrates
Very good; and what next?

Theaetetus
All the lines which form the four sides of the equilateral or square numbers we called lengths, and those which form the oblong numbers we called surds, because they are not commensurable with the others


Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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