Greek philosophers
Pythagoras
Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and priest. He was born in 570 BC (Samos) and died in 510 BC (Croton in southern Italy). He was nicknamed "the father of numbers".
Pythagoras' father was Mésarchos, who was either a merchant or a ring engraver. His teachers were Pherecydes of Syros and Anaximandros.
As a young man, Pythagoras travelled widely, visiting places such as Babylonia and Egypt. Around 530 BC he fled Samos when the tyrant Polycrates seized power there. He subsequently founded a philosophical school in what is now Crotone in Calabria. This also gave him considerable public influence. However, when a dispute arose between his city and that of Sybaris over the division of conquered land, anger turned against Pythagoras. He therefore left the city in 510 BC and settled at Metapontus near Tarentum, where he died. After his death, the citizens set up a temple to the goddess Demeter in his house.
Pythagoras' teachings are a mystery, as there are very conflicting accounts of him. Realistically, it appears to have contained two main aspects, namely religious teachings and the practice and interest in numbers. Also important to him was the doctrine of the relation of soul and body.
Pythagoras' "school" was very much like a modern-day monastery, where an ascetic life is cultivated and services are held. Pythagoras demanded strict discipline and purity. His disciples called him a sage, but he preferred to be called a "lover of wisdom" (filosofos from philein, "to love", and sofos, "wise"). His followers then came to call themselves philosophers.
According to Pythagoras, the most perfect geometric figures are the sphere and the circle, then the square as a symbol of the four elements. Among the Pythagorean concepts is the "quadrilateral", namely the sequence of the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4, the sum of which is ten.
Furthermore, Pythagoras discovered the relationship between the length of the string and the notes of the scale: a half string sounds an octave higher, a two-thirds string a fifth, etc.
Clearly the most famous is the "Pythagorean Theorem", which reads "the sum of the contents of the squares above the two branches of a right triangle is equal to the contents of the square above the hypotenuse". The general proof of the theorem has traditionally been attributed to the Egyptians or Babylonians. And it was here that Pythagoras was to become acquainted with it during his travels. Modern scholars question it through the language barrier.