During the life of the scientist, the biography of Pythagoras was overgrown with all sorts of legends, sometimes completely fantastic. Without leaving any personal records about himself, Pythagoras remains a significant figure in both philosophy and mathematics.
The biography of the ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician and mystic Pythagoras is not known for certain. He did not leave any records about himself, and the only sources about his life are the writings of the scholar's students and followers. A huge amount of evidence about his life has come down to us, but many of them are so fantastic and full of speculation that they can speak of his popularity, although it puts historians in a difficult position. Researchers put the approximate date of birth of Pythagoras between 570 and 590 BC. From the writings of his closest student Aristoxenus, we know that Pythagoras spent his childhood on the island of Samos, not far from the coast of modern Turkey. According to various versions, his father was either a merchant or a stone cutter, which is most likely. Pythagoras was well educated, learned to play the lyre and versification, and could declare the works of Homer. Already in his youth, he had the inclinations for scientific activity, which were noticed by his senior teachers - Ferekid, Anaximander, Hermodamantes and Thales, the latter of which had a great influence on Pythagoras' interest in mathematics and astronomy.
The matured scientist is already getting cramped in his native Samos, and he goes on a journey, information about which is also very different. Nevertheless, the authors write that Pythagoras visited Miletus, Egypt, the Chaldean lands, Babylon, Crete and many other places, but these data cannot be considered reliable. The most reliable version of Porfiry is considered that at the age of 40, Pythagoras left for Italy and settled in the Greek colony city of Croton, where his philosophical activity flourished. Here he opens his own school, whose students later became known as "Pythagoreans". It was a kind of religious order with a strong focus on ethics and morality. At the age of 60, Pythagoras marries his student Teano, from whose marriage the scientist had a daughter Damo and sons Arimnest and Telavg. Soon, due to contradictions with the local government, Pythagoras was forced to leave for another Greek colony - the city of Metapont. Most authors indicate that it was here that he died, but the date of the scientist's death also remains unknown. The approximate period from 500 to 490 BC is widely used. as the date of death of Pythagoras.
Traditionally, it is believed that the works of Pythagoras himself have not reached us, there is a version that he did not write down his works at all. Due to its great popularity, many works were attributed to the authorship of Pythagoras, even those that were written much later. It is also interesting that during his lifetime and after about 150 years, Pythagoras was known not as a mathematician, but as a famous mystic, an expert on religious rites and a miracle worker. But, of course, mathematical activity became the main one for study in a later period up to the present day.
Known more than 2000 years before Pythagoras in Egypt, Babylon and China, the theorem about the equality of the sum of the squares of the lengths of the legs and the square of the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle got its name precisely in honor of this scientist thanks to ancient authors. The Pythagorean theorem can be expressed as follows:
a 2 + b 2 \u003d c 2where a and b - the length of the legs, and c is the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle.
At the moment, there are 367 different proofs of the theorem in science. Such an impressive number of proofs can be explained by the fact that the meaning of the theorem is indeed fundamental to geometry. The actual contribution of Pythagoras to the theorem is that he used algebraic methods to calculate "Pythagorean triplets" - an ordered set of three natural numbers that satisfy the equation above.
One of the proofs proposed by Euclid is based on the area method. Squares are drawn to the sides of the triangle, and it is proved that the area of \u200b\u200bthe square built on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares that are built on the legs. This proof was called "Pythagorean pants", and the phrase "Pythagorean pants are equal on all sides" is used to memorize the theorem by schoolchildren.
Another invention of the scientist, also known to all of us from school, is the Pythagorean table, better known as the multiplication table. This table was actively used by the students of his school. The Pythagorean table was written in the form of a 10 by 10 square, but not in numbers, but in Greek and Phoenician letters with a dash above each of them.
The doctrine of Pythagoras was based on the fact that everything in the Universe is certain numbers, and the relationship between them is mathematical. In this sense, the mathematical research of Pythagoras in music is of great interest. It would seem, how can the study of music and such a rigorous science as mathematics be combined? But it was thanks to Pythagoras that the doctrine of the "Pythagorean order" appeared - a mathematical expression of the frequency relations between the steps of the scale. He established the mathematical dependence of the harmonic vibration of lyre strings to the length of the strings. Pythagorean tuning can also be applied to other instruments.
Another interesting invention of the scientist was the so-called "circle of Pythagoras", otherwise called "circle of greed". This mug looks like an ordinary bowl at first glance, but in the center there is a special column, inside which there is a curved channel from the bottom of the bowl that goes out. The essence of this invention lies in the fact that if you pour more liquid than the required label, then all the contents will pour out through this channel according to the law of communicating vessels. According to legend, the mug was used so that the drinker from it would not drink too much, but could enjoy the drink. According to another version, slaves were watered from such mugs to save water, the shortage of which was in Samos.
We will never be able to establish exactly what real contribution to science was made by Pythagoras. Having become a truly legendary person during his lifetime, Pythagoras and his biography were overgrown with numerous speculations and stories. But, undoubtedly, the philosophical doctrine of Pythagoras played a role in his popularity, and only then other scientists were able to appreciate his mathematical genius. The desire to see the arithmetic regularity in everything and the idea that everything is numbers were one of the components of the mystical philosophy of the Pythagoreans. They extolled positive integers, which they then depicted as dots and arranged in the form of regular geometric shapes. They represented numbers as "masculine" and "feminine" (even and odd, respectively), studied their properties. The school opened by Pythagoras existed for a long time, carrying the arithmetic mysticism of its philosophy through time and attracting more and more followers.
In memory of Pythagoras, since antiquity, works, discoveries and socially significant places have been named. In the modern world, there is the city of Pythagorion on the island of Samos, named after its famous inhabitant, a lunar crater, a museum-workshop in Sweden, one of the educational buildings in Cambridge and, of course, mathematical theorems, methods and figures that appeared at different times, connected in one way or another. with the activities of Pythagoras in mathematics.
The man we know as a great mathematician was still a philosopher, mystic, ascetic and the founder of the religious-philosophical school of his name. Pythagorean ideas had a noticeable influence on Plato, and through him on the whole of Western philosophy.
Herodotus claimed that Pythagoras was born in 570 BC on Samos, a Greek island in the eastern part of the Aegean Sea. His father was a jeweler according to some sources, and a merchant according to others. According to legend, his pregnant mother received a prediction from the Delphic pythia that she would give birth to a beautiful, wise and useful child to humanity. She named her son after the fortuneteller.
Diogenes Laertius reported that Pythagoras traveled a lot and visited not only Egypt, Arabia, Phenicia, Judea, Babylon, but even India. He collected knowledge about the nature of things and about secret mystical cults and gods. Plutarch claimed that during his visit to Egypt, Pythagoras studied with the priest of the god Anubis. Xenophanes wrote that he believed in the transmigration of souls. There is a story when Pythagoras interceded on behalf of a dog that was beaten, claiming that he recognized the voice of a deceased friend in its screams. He shocked listeners by claiming to have fought in the Trojan War.
Pythagoras made many discoveries. In addition to the famous theorem and number theory, he excelled in music - he proved the relationship between pitch and string length. In astronomy he created the theory of "music of spheres" and recognized the sphericity of the Earth. The dogmas of Pythagorean medicine were studied by Hippocrates. But along with scientific research, Pythagoras practiced fortune-telling and prophecy. He bogged down science and mysticism in a bizarre tangle, creating, in fact, a new religious movement.
Esoteric teachings, secret religious doctrines and customs that undoubtedly figured prominently in the Pythagorean system are associated with the cult of Apollo. Moderation in everything was the school's main platform. His students formed a kind of club that included a school of thought, a religious fraternity, and a political association.
The inhabitants of Croton, where Pythagoras settled after his travels, idolized him. They followed him unconditionally. Ancient authors told fantastic stories, how, after the eloquent speeches of the philosopher, the Greeks became real ascetics.
Few people know that Pythagoras was the ideologist of the destruction of Sybaris, a city of sybarites full of luxury. Preaching his doctrine, he called on the Crotons to abandon excesses in defiance of the pampered sybarites. The contradictions between the two policies of Magna Graecia led to war and the Crotons destroyed Sybaris. Pythagoras' disciples claimed that he lamented about this, but historians ... historians do not believe them.
However, after the destruction of Sybaris, unrest began in Croton. The Pythagoreans imposed their own order, but the inhabitants no longer wanted hardships and abstinence. And so, on one tragic day for the Pythagoreans, the Crotons set fire to their temple. Many adepts died, the survivors fled. Later, the followers of the doctrine organized a kind of sect, but over time, the Pythagorean school ceased to exist.
As for the fate of Pythagoras himself, opinions differ. Some say that he died in the temple with his disciples, others that he escaped by ship to Metapont, and there he starved himself to death.
Fragments of his teachings have reached our days. Scientists recognize Pythagoras as a great mathematician and astronomer, thanks to whom the provision of the need for proofs entered into mathematics, which gave it the status of a special discipline. Philosophers put Pythagoras on a par with Zarathushtra, Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tzu. The mystics revere him as his great initiate, clairvoyant and prophet.
Pythagoras of Samos, ancient Greek philosopher, great initiate of the Earth, political and religious figure, mathematician, founder of Pythagoreanism. His main life concept is “Everything is Number”. This is usually indicated in encyclopedias and his biographies.
But who he was, who is now and who will be Pythagoras in the future, remains a cosmic Mystery ...
He is a brilliant scientist, a great dedicated philosopher, sage, the founder of the famous school of the Pythagoreans and the spiritual teacher of a number of outstanding philosophers of world renown. Pythagoras became the ancestor of the teachings of Numbers, Music of the Celestial Spheres and the Cosmos, created the basis of monadology and the quantum theory of the structure of matter. He made discoveries of great importance in the fields of such sciences as mathematics, music, optics, geometry, astronomy, number theory, superstring theory (Earth monochord), psychology, pedagogy, ethics.
Pythagoras developed his philosophy on the basis of knowledge of the laws of interconnection between the visible and invisible world, the unity of spirit and matter, on the concept of the immortality of the soul and its gradual purification through migration (the theory of incarnation). Many legends are associated with the name of Pythagoras, and his students were able to win glory for themselves and became outstanding people, thanks to whose works we learned the foundations of Pythagoras' teachings, his statements, practical and ethical advice, as well as theoretical postulates and spiritual tales of Pythagoras.
Perhaps not every one of us will be able to recall the Pythagorean theorem, but everyone knows the saying “Pythagorean pants are equal on all sides”. Pythagoras, among other things, was a rather cunning person. The great scientist taught all his pupils - the Pythagoreans - a simple tactic that was very beneficial to him: he made discoveries - assign them to your teacher. Perhaps this is a rather controversial proposition, but it is thanks to his students that Pythagoras has a really incredible number of discoveries:
In geometry: the well-known and beloved Pythagorean theorem, as well as the construction of individual polyhedra and polygons.
In geography and astronomy: one of the first to express the hypothesis that the Earth is round, and also believed that we are not alone in the universe.
In music: determined that the sound depends on the length of the flute or string.
In numerology: in our time, numerology has become famous and quite popular, but it was Pythagoras who combined the numbers with forecasts for the future.
Pythagoras taught that both the beginning and the end of all that exists lies in a certain abstract quantity, the so-called Monad. It represents an unknowable absolute emptiness, chaos, the ancestral home of all gods, and at the same time contains the fullness of being in the form of divine Light. The Monad, like the ether, permeates all things, but is not in any one of them. This is the sum of all numbers, which is always considered as an indivisible whole, as a unit.
The Pythagoreans depicted the Monad as a figure that consists of ten points - the so-called nodes. All these ten nodes, called by the Pythagoreans tetractis, create between themselves nine equilateral triangles, which personify the fullness of the universal emptiness and the Life-giving Cross.
It is also believed that Pythagoras created the foundations of planimetry, introduced the wide and obligatory use of evidence in geometry, created the doctrine of similarity.
All these discoveries Pythagoras made more than two and a half millennia ago! The discoveries of Pythagoras, like his faithful disciples, live and will live in the future.
Messages about Pythagoras, the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician, the founder of the Pythagorean school are set out in this article.
Report on Pythagoras
Brief biography of Pythagoras
Pythagoras was born about 570 BC in Sidon Phoenician in the family of a wealthy Tyrian merchant. Due to the financial condition of his parents, the young man met with many sages of that era and absorbed their knowledge like a sponge.
At the age of 18, Pythagoras left his hometown and went to Egypt. He stayed there for 22 years, comprehending the knowledge of local priests. When the Persian king conquered Egypt, the scientist was taken to Babylon, where he lived for another 12 years. He returned to his native land at the age of 56, and his compatriots recognized him as a sage.
Pythagoras the donkey of southern Italy, the Greek colony - Crotone. Here he found many followers and founded his own school. His students practically deified their founder and teacher. But the omnipotence of the Pythagoreans led to the outbreak of rebellions and Pythagoras moved to another Greek colony - Metapont. Here he died.
He was married to the woman Feano, in marriage with whom was born a son Telavg and a daughter, whose name is unknown.
Features of the philosophical doctrine of Pythagoras
The philosophical teaching of Pythagoras consists of two parts - the scientific approach to the knowledge of the world and the occult way of life, preached by him. He meditated on the liberation of the soul through physical and moral purification by secret teaching. The philosopher founded the mystical doctrine of the cycle of the cycle of transmigration of the soul. The eternal soul, according to the scientist, moves from heaven to the body of an animal or human. And it moves from body to body until the soul deserves the right to return back to heaven.
Pythagoras formulated a number of teachings from his school - about behavior, the cycle of human lives, sacrifices, food and burials.
The Pythagoreans put forward the idea of \u200b\u200bquantitative patterns in the development of the world. And this, in turn, contributed to the development of physical, mathematical, geographical and astronomical knowledge. Pythagoras taught that the world and things are based on number. He developed numerical relationships that have found application in all human activities.
Judging by the brief biography of Pythagoras, his life was filled with amazing events, and his contemporaries considered him perhaps the most outstanding scientist of all times and peoples, dedicated to all the secrets of the Universe.
Historical evidence of the origin of Pythagoras has been preserved. His father was Mnesarchus, a native of Tire, who received the citizenship of Samos, and the mother of Partenides or Pythaida, who was a relative of Ankeus, the founder of the Greek colony on Samos.
Training
If you follow the official biography of Pythagoras, then at the age of 18 he went to Egypt, to the court of Pharaoh Amasis, to which he was sent by the Samos tyrant Polycrates. Thanks to the patronage, Pythagoras got into training with the Egyptian priests and was admitted to the temple libraries. It is believed that the sage spent about 22 years in Egypt.
Babylonian captivity
Pythagoras came to Babylon as a prisoner of King Cambyses. He stayed in the country for about 12 years, studying with local magicians and priests. At the age of 56, he returned to his native Samos.
Philosophical school
Testimonies indicate that after all his wanderings, Pythagoras settled in Crotone (Southern Italy). There he founded a philosophical school, more like a certain religious order (the followers of Pythagoras believed that the transmigration of the soul and reincarnation was possible; they believed that a person should by good deeds earn a place in the world of the Gods, and until this happens, the soul will return to Earth, “ settling "in the body of an animal or a person), where not only knowledge was promoted, but also a special way of life.
It was Pythagoras and his students, for whom the authority of the teacher was indisputable, who introduced the words "philosophy" and "philosopher" into circulation. This order actually came to power in Crotone, but due to the spread of anti-Pythagorean sentiments, the philosopher was forced to leave for the city of Metapont, where he died, approximately in 491 BC.
Personal life
The name of the wife of Pythagoras - Feano is known. It is also known that the philosopher had a son and a daughter.
Discoveries
It was Pythagoras, according to most researchers, who discovered the famous theorem that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the legs.
An eternal opponent of Pythagoras was Heraclitus, who believed that "much knowledge" is not a sign of a true philosophical mind. Aristotle never quoted Pythagoras in his writings, but Plato considered Pythagoras the greatest philosopher of Greece, bought the works of the Pythagoreans and often quoted their judgments in his writings.
Other biography options
- It is interesting that the birth of Pythagoras was predicted by the Delphic Pythia (hence the name, after all, "Pythagoras" in translation from Greek means "predicted by Pythia"). The boy's father was warned that his son would be born unusually gifted and would bring many benefits to people.
- Many biographers describe the life of Pythagoras in different ways. There are certain discrepancies in the works of Heraclides, Ephsebius of Caesarea, Diogenes, Porfiry. According to the works of the latter, the philosopher either died as a result of the anti-Pythagorean rebellion, or he himself starved himself to death in one of the temples, since he was not satisfied with the results of his labor.
- There is an opinion that Pythagoras was a vegetarian and only occasionally allowed himself to eat fish. Asceticism in everything is one of the components of the teachings of the Pythagorean philosophical school.
Biography score
New feature! The average rating this biography received. Show rating