Pythagoras

Surely sometime in your life, whether in studies, at school or simply on television, you have heard of Pythagoras and his famous theorem. He is a Greek philosopher and mathematician who had an important role in the development of mathematics in ancient Greece. The relevance that Pythagoras had in history made it known today. What is best known about him is the famous Pythagorean theorem taught to students in high school in mathematics.

In order not to leave this important mathematician only with that feat, in this article you can find all his biography, contributions to science and most important discoveries.

Biography

A very common man son of a merchant. The first part of his life was developed on an island of Samos. It is possible that he abandoned it before the tyrant Polycrates was executed in 522 BC. From there it is possible that he could travel to Miletus and then to Phenicia and Egypt. In Egypt esoteric knowledge was on the rise. Therefore, it is likely that Pythagoras was studying there the mysteries that concerned life such as geometry and astronomy. However, his legacy also resonates in the history of mathematics.

It's said here that things are likely because the entire life of this mathematician is not reliably known. Just consider that this happened many years ago, and that history has left its mark on these events. Having clarified this, let's continue with his biography.

Some sources claim that Pythagoras went to Babylon with Cambyses II in order to learn the arithmetic and musical knowledge of the priests. There is talk of trips also to Delos, Crete and Greca before forming and establishing his famous school in Crotona. It is one of the colonies that the Greeks founded two centuries ago to gain more power and popularity. In it he established his school where he learned much more about geometry and mathematics.

The entire Pythagorean community was surrounded by a complete mystery. His disciples had to wait several years before being presented to their teacher. It is as if it were a kind of test ritual or key to access to knowledge. The same thing happened once they received his teachings. They had to keep a strict secret before everything taught. Women could also be part of this brotherhood. One of the most famous that was in school was Teano. She was the wife of Pythagoras and the mother of a daughter and two other sons of the philosopher.

Pythagorean Philosophy

This mathematician and philosopher did not leave any written work, so it is more difficult to know about him. It is impossible to distinguish some ideas that have come from the disciples and others that are directly his. Without having a work done by him at hand, we cannot know that the discoveries were really his. Pythagoreanism seems more like a mystery religion than a philosophical school. In this sense, they lived a lifestyle inspired by an ideal that was based on the community of goods. The main objective of this lifestyle was the ritual purification of its members. This purification is known as catharsis.

However, this type of purification was carried out through continuous learning where mathematics and musical instruments played an important role. In order to understand mathematics and to be able to increase knowledge on the part of students, the path to knowledge was philosophy.

One of the slogans most used by Pythagoras as an inspiring message for all his disciples was that of "love of wisdom". For them, philosophers were lovers of knowledge and loved to learn more and more about things. Mathematics helped them understand many mysteries that were in reality. Pythagoras is credited with transforming mathematics into a liberal teaching. To do this, an abstract formulation of the results had to be made. Regardless of the material context in which some of the mathematical results were known, it had to be formulated so that it could always be known and extrapolated to other conditions.

Pythagorean Theorem

This is where the famous case of the Pythagorean theorem comes in. This theorem establishes the relationship between the sides of a right triangle. The theorem states that the square of the hypotenuse (this being the longest side of the triangle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the legs (These being the shortest sides that form the right angle). This theorem has provided numerous practical resources in ancient Greek and earlier civilizations such as the Egyptian and Babylonian. However, it is Pythagoras who is credited with the first valid proof of the theorem.

Thanks to this, the school had many advances. The generality of this mathematical theorem enforced the purification and perfection of the soul since it increased that knowledge in the person. In addition, it helped to know the world as harmony. The universe was considered as a cosmos. The cosmos is nothing more than an ordered set in which the celestial bodies keep a position in which they are in complete harmony. The distances between each celestial body have similar proportions and correspond to the intervals of the musical octave. For this mathematician, the celestial spheres rotated and produced what was called the music of the spheres. This music cannot be heard by the human ear because it is permanent and perpetual.

Influence

The influence it had was very important. More than a century after his death, Plato could have knowledge of Pythagorean philosophy thanks to the disciples. In Plato's doctrine the influence of Pythagoras is assured.

Later, in the seventeenth century, the astronomer Johannes Kepler he still believed in the music of the spheres when he was able to discover the elliptical orbits of the planets. His concepts of harmony and proportion of the celestial spheres would serve as a precursor to the scientific revolution that caused Galileo Galilei.

As you can see, Pythagoras has marked a before and after in the history of mathematics, philosophy and astronomy.