Pythagoras

In Greece around 500 years before the birth of Christ there was a man called Pythagoras. Pythagoras had many interests. He played music, loved poetry and literature. He was an an astronomer (someone who researches the stars), a philosopher (a word Pythagoras invented that means lover of knowledge) and a mathematician (another word Pythagoras invented that meant originally that which is learned).

He studied with priests in Egypt.

Pythagoras started a school of religion and philosophy. He had many followers and they lived and worked in a Greek area of southern Italy. The members of the school had to follow strict rules, including when they spoke, what they wore and what they ate. Pythagoras was the Master of the school, and the men and women, who followed him had no personal possessions and were vegetarians (though they didn’t eat beans). The followers worked together on mathematical problems and the school rather than any member of the school took credit for the discoveries they made.

The Pythagorians believed that all things could be explained by numbers. They believed that odd numbers were male and even numbers were female. They believed that the number 7 was lucky. It is thought that this is because of the seven wandering stars or planets that give us our names for the days of the week. Sunday from the sun, Monday from the moon, Tuesday from Mars (Tuesday in French is Martes), Mercury gives us Wednesday (Wednesday is Mercredi in French), Jupiter gives us Thursday (Jueves in Spanish), Venus gives us Friday (Viernes in Spanish), Saturn gives us Saturday. These names come from Greek to Latin and to languages influenced by Latin (like English, French and Spanish). The ‘wandering stars’ are the non-fixed objects visible in the sky, known to various ancient cultures. The word planet comes from the Greek word planates meaning wanderer.

The moto of the Pythagorean school was ‘All is number’. They gave the following meaning to numbers:

One, they called the generator of numbers (you can make any positive whole number by adding one to another number).

Two is the first female number, the number of opinion.

Three is the first true male number, the number of harmony.

Four is the number of justice.

Five is the number of marriage.

Six is the number of creation and so on…

Ten was the holiest number, the number of the universe.

The Pythagorians contributed a lot to Mathematics. The most famous contribution is a theorem (a rule expressed by a formula) called Pythagoras’s theorem which is to do with right-angled triangles.