TGT Desk
Perhaps you have heard about the Pythagoras Theorem. Have you ever wondered who this Pythagoras was?
The Greek philosopher Pythagoras lived perhaps half a century after Thales, the first scientist. Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus and Pythais, was born in the island of Samos, off the coast of Asia Minor what is now mostly Turkey, about 569 BC. Pythais was a native of Samos. Mnesarchus was a merchant from Tyre. An ancient story says that he brought grain to Samos during a famine and was granted citizenship of Samos out of gratitude.
Pythagoras was of Asiatic birth, and, like Thales, travelled everywhere to study and did much traveling through Egypt, learning, among other things, mathematics. He probably had at least two brothers, perhaps three. Little is known about his childhood. He apparently grew up in Samos, but travelled with his father. It has been said he and his father returned to Tyre on at least one occasion and also travelled to Italy.
Pythagoras was well-educated, a good reader and good at playing the lyre. It is said that while in Tyre, he studied with the learned men of Syria. At home, he was influenced by his teacher, the philosopher, Pherekydes. Another tale has him visiting Miletus in his late teenage years to study with Thales. By this time, Thales was a very old man, who probably did not teach Pythagoras a lot, but may have greatly influenced him. Thales’s student, Anaximander was giving lectures in Miletus and quite possibly, Pythagoras attended these lectures. Anaximander had great interest in geometry and cosmology, subjects which would strongly influence Pythagoras’s own views.
Not much more is known of his early years. He went from city to city of his countrymen to select which one was most attractive as a permanent home. He finally decided to settle at Crotona, and there established the Brotherhood of Pythagoreans, which was devoted to the study of mathematics. The group was almost cult-like in that it had symbols, rituals and prayers. In addition, Pythagoras believed that “number rules the universe,” and the Pythagoreans gave numerical values to many objects and ideas. These numerical values, in turn, were endowed with mystical and spiritual qualities.
Stories tell us that Pythagoras was a marvelously impressive man. He spoke most beautifully, but most calmly. He wore always a long white robe, and had long white beard and flowing hair. He moved slowly; he ate no meat, and he never showed upon his serene face the trace of any passion or feeling whatsoever. Gradually his influence in Crotona became such that be was the real ruler of the city. His ideas spread to other places, until almost every town in Greece had its school of Pythagoreans, a sort of scholars, who not only swayed the thought of the community, but often held political control as well. In Crotona the followers of Pythagoras attempted to establish an oligarchy, a government open only to a few of themselves; but they were defeated and driven out with considerable bloodshed by an uprising of the common folk, the democracy. Similar tumults occurred in other cities, and gradually this “government by philosophers” sank into obscurity. As Pythagoras never wrote down his doctrines, and forbade his followers from doing so, his teachings have come down to us only in vague and distorted form, and we really know little of them.
Legend has it that upon completion of his famous theorem, Pythagoras sacrificed 100 oxen. The Pythagoreans had discovered irrational numbers! If we take an isosceles right triangle with legs of measure 1, the hypotenuse will measure square root of 2. But this number cannot be expressed as a length that can be measured with a ruler divided into fractional parts, and that deeply disturbed the Pythagoreans, who believed that “All is number.” They called these numbers “alogon,” which means “unutterable.” So shocked were the Pythagoreans by these numbers, they put to death a member who dared to mention their existence to the public. It would be 200 years later that the Greek mathematician Eudoxus developed a way to deal with these unutterable numbers.
The next phase of Pythagoras’s life is a bit confusing. Some say he fled Samos for Egypt to escape the tyranny of Polycrates, who had seized control of Samos some years before. There is some evidence, however that there was a friendship between the two men and Pythagoras actually traveled to Egypt with a letter of introduction from Polycrates around 535 BC. There were, at the time, good relations between the two countries.
While in Egypt, Pythagoras visited, or at least tried to visit, many of the temples and spoke with a large number of priests and scholars. There are some accounts that indicate he was denied access to all but a few temples. One, however, which he apparently entered, was Diospolis where he was accepted into the priesthood after completing the rites necessary for admission. While in Egypt, Pythagoras continued his education, especially in mathematics and geometry.
Ten years after Pythagoras arrived in Egypt, relations between that country and Samos fell apart. Polycrates sent 40 ships to help Cambyses II, the king of Persia, invaded Egypt. During this war, Egypt lost and Pythagoras was taken prisoner and taken to Babylon.
Pythagoras wasn’t treated as a prisoner of war as we would consider today. He continued his education in mathematics and music and delved into the teachings of the priests, learning their sacred rites. He became extremely proficient in his studies of mathematics and sciences as taught by the Babylonians.
After the deaths of Polycrates and Cambyses, Pythagoras left depart Babylon just five years later. He returned to Samos, which was now under the rule of Darius of Persia. Soon afterwards, he made a brief trip to Crete to study their legal system before returning to Samos to found his own school. It was called the Semicircle, and is still known by that name even today.
The Samians were not very receptive to his teaching method. According to Iamblichus’s book, Life of Pythagoras, “He tried to use his symbolic method of teaching which was similar in all respects to the lessons he had learnt in Egypt. The Samians were not very keen on this method and treated him in a rude and improper manner.” So, in about 518 BC he left Samos once again and went to Croton in southern Italy, and continued his study and teaching.
When he was sitting with some of his companions in the house of Milo in Croton one of his companions, whom he did not think worthy of admission into his school, was by envy excited to set fire to it. It was led by Cylon. But some say that the people of Crotona themselves did this, being afraid lest he might aspire to a tyranny. The master only escaped because his followers bridged the fire with their own bodies. He got as far as a field of beans, where he stopped and declared that it was better to be slain than to speak, and would rather be killed than cross it. This enabled his pursuers to catch up with him and cut his throat.
Pythagoras is credited with inventing the Pythagorean Theorem. Pythagoras also invented a lot of number patterns. Plato and Aristotle were influenced by Pythagoras’s way of thinking. Also, he was a Greek religious leader who made huge developments in math. Pythagoras of Samos is often described as the first pure mathematician. He is an extremely important figure in the development of modern mathematics.
Probably his most popular theorem is the Pythagoras Theorem. This is used for a right angled triangle. This theorem enables you to find the length of the third side of a right triangle when only knowing the length of two sides. Pythagoras also invented the concept five regular solids. It is thought that Pythagoras himself knew how to construct the first three but it is unlikely that he knew how to construct the other two. The beliefs that Pythagoras held were: (1) At its deepest level, reality is mathematical in nature, (2) Philosophy can be used for spiritual purification,(3) The soul can rise to union with the divine, 4) Certain symbols have a mystical significance.