Pythagoras (c. 580 – c. 495 BCE)

Pythagoras (c. 580 – c. 495 BCE)

Greek mathematician born in the first half of the 6th century BCE on the Aegean island of Samos in Ionia, near Miletus. He died circa 500 BCE in Metapontum, where he was exiled. Dates are approximate because Pythagoras, although many times quoted by the ancients, has never written anything himself and we do not have any biography that was written for him in the time when he lived.

Pythagore (~580-~495 av. J.-C.)

Pythagoras (c. 580-495 BCE)

Pythagorean Theorem

Relationship between the measures a, b and c of the sides of a right triangle: : a2 = b2 + c2, where a represents the length of the hypotenuse, and b and c the lengths of the two sides of the right angle.

Historical note

With a modern perspective, we would be tempted to affirm that Pythagoras (Πυθαγó-ρας, meaning “announced by the Pythia”) was in his time a guru, thought leader, model, accomplished Olympian athlete, first philosopher, pedagogue, mathematician, musician. He was at the same time adulated by the disciples from his school and hated by the politicians who have chased him and ordered the destruction of all the buildings that housed his school. He can also be considered as a guru because of the secret and sectarian character of the Pythagorean school where everything was put in common, where the knowledge was attributed to the master, where like an initiatory organization, the members must go through different hierarchical degrees, such as postulant, neophyte, akousmatikoi (auditor ), then mathēmatikoi (scholar).

The symbol used by the followers of the Pythagorean school to recognize between themselves was the pentagram or the regular star pentagon.

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