All things are numbers.
—Pythagoras
Pythagoras (c. 580–c. 500 BC) was the founder of an ancient Greek religious cult whose members believed that the study of math and science would bring them closer to God. In the course of their religious devotions, his tight-knit community of disciples developed several of the basic precepts of math and geometry, including the famous Pythagorean theorem, earning their teacher a reputation as one of the fathers of mathematics.
Born on the island of Samos, off the coast of Turkey, Pythagoras moved to the southern Italian city of Croton at about age forty. After founding the Pythagorean sect, he moved with his followers to Metapontum, another city in Greek-speaking southern Italy.
Belief in reincarnation was the central tenet of the Pythagorean religion. Pythagoras taught that the soul was indestructible, but that people needed to follow certain rules to ensure the best possible reincarnations after their physical deaths. Among the rules adopted by his followers: no wearing shoes in the temple, no touching white roosters, put the right shoe on first, and always abstain from eating beans.
Pythagoras also believed that the study of mathematics was a religious duty. Pythagorean mathematicians were able to prove the famous theorem a2 + b2 = c2—the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is always equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Pythagoreans also introduced the concepts of irrational numbers (numbers that can’t be expressed as fractions) and the square root.
Little of Pythagoras’s life is known, but dozens of improbable myths—that he had the ability to write on the moon, that he could travel through time—arose after the philosopher-mathematician’s death. His followers continued to flourish for several hundred years before dwindling away.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- To become a Pythagorean, it was believed that would-be disciples had to remain silent for five years as a way of demonstrating their self-control.
- According to one myth about Pythagoras, his thigh was made of gold. He was also supposedly capable of being in two places at the same time.
- In addition to avoiding beans, Pythagoras purportedly told his followers not to eat sea anemones, plough-oxen, or the heart of any animal.
