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Pythagoras of Samos (Greek: Πυθαγόρας; circa 582 BC Ð'- circa 507 BC) was an Ionian (Greek) mathematician, astronomer, scientist and philosopher,[1] founder of the mathematical, mystic, religious, and scientific society called Pythagoreans. His name led him to be associated with Pythian Apollo; Aristippus explained his name by saying, "He spoke (agor-) the truth no less than did the Pythian (Pyth-)," and Iamblichus tells the story that the Pythia prophesied that his pregnant mother would give birth to a man supremely beautiful, wise, and of benefit to humankind.[2]

. Known as "the father of numbers," Pythagoras made influential contributions to philosophy and religious teaching in the late 6th century BC. Because legend and obfuscation cloud his work even more than with the other pre-Socratics, one can say little with confidence about his life and teachings. We do know that Pythagoras and his students believed that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality and, through mathematics, everything could be predicted and measured in rhythmic patterns or cycles. According to Iamblichus, Pythagoras once said that "number is the ruler of forms and ideas and the cause of gods and demons."

Life

Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos (a Greek island in the Eastern Aegean), off the coast of Asia Minor. He was born to Pythais (his mother, a native of Samos) and Mnesarchus (his father, a merchant from Tyre). As a young man, he left his native city for Croton, Calabria, in Southern Italy, to escape the tyrannical government of Polycrates. According to Iamblichus, Thales, impressed with his abilities, advised Pythagoras to go to Memphis in Egypt and study with the priests there who were renowned for their wisdom. He also was discipled in the temples of Tyre and Byblos in Phoenicia. It may have been in Egypt where he learned some geometric principles which eventually inspired his discovery of the theorem that is now called by his name. This possible inspiration is presented as an example problem in the Berlin Papyrus.

PythagorasUpon his migration from Samos to Croton, Calabria, Italy, Pythagoras established a secret religious society very similar to (and possibly influenced by) the earlier Orphic cult.

Pythagoras undertook a reform of the cultural life of Croton, urging the citizens to follow virtue and form an elite circle of followers around himself called Pythagoreans. Very strict rules of conduct governed this cultural center. He opened his school to male and female students alike. Those who joined the inner circle of Pythagoras's society called themselves the Mathematikoi. They lived at the school, owned no personal possessions and were required to assume a vegetarian diet. Other students who lived in neighboring areas were also permitted to attend Pythagoras's school. Known as Akousmatikoi, these students were permitted to eat meat and own personal belongings.

According to Iamblichus, the Pythagoreans followed a structured life of religious teaching, common meals, exercise, reading and philosophical study. Music featured as an essential organizing factor of this life: the disciples would sing hymns to Apollo together regularly; they used the lyre to cure illness of the soul or body; poetry recitations occurred before and after sleep to aid the memory.

Bust of Pythagoras, VaticanFlavius Josephus relates that, according to Hermippus of Smyrna, Pythagoras was familiar with and an admirer of Jewish customs and wisdom (De Pythagora, Contra Apionem I, 162/165). Hermippus is quoted as saying about Pythagoras: "In practicing and repeating these precepts he was imitating and appropriating the doctrines of Jews and Thracians. In fact, it is actually said that that great man introduced many points of Jewish law into his philosophy." (trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, The Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge (Mass.)-London)

Pythagoras is commonly given credit for discovering the Pythagorean theorem, a theorem in trigonometry that states that in a right-angled triangle the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle), c, is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of the other two sides, b and a, that is, a2+b2=c2.

The history of the Pythagorean theorem that bears his name is complex. Whether Pythagoras himself proved this theorem is not known, as it was common in the ancient world to credit a famous teacher with the discoveries of his students. The earliest known mention of Pythagoras's name in connection with the theorem occurred five centuries after his death, in the writings of Cicero and Plutarch. It is also believed that the Indian mathematician Baudhayana discovered the Pythagorean Theorem around 800 B.C.E, about 300 years before Pythagoras and is written in Sulba Sutras.

Pythagoras also made an important achievement in astronomy; he was one of the first people to realize that Venus as the morning star and Venus as the evening star were the same planet. He believed in the mistaken geocentric world-view of his age, but on the other hand he recognized that the moon's orbit around the earth was inclined towards the equator of the earth.

Today, Pythagoras is revered as a prophet by the Ahlu l-Tawhīd or Druze faith along with his fellow Greek, Plato.

Diogenes Laertius records more than one variant of a humorous tale that bases the manner of Pythagoras' death on his respect for beans. According to one account, Pythagoras had joined the fight of the |Agrigentines against the Syracusans. When the Agrigentines were put to flight, Pythagoras, not wishing to cross a bean field, went around it and was killed by the Syracusans.

Pythagoreans

Pythagoras's followers were commonly called "Pythagoreans." For the most part we remember them as philosophical mathematicians who had an influence on the beginning of axiomatic geometry, which after two hundred years of development was written down by Euclid in The Elements.

The Pythagoreans observed a rule of silence called echemythia, the breaking of which was punishable by death. This was because the Pythagoreans believed that a man's words were usually careless and misrepresented him and that when someone was "in doubt as to what he should say, he should always remain silent". Another rule that they had was to help a man "in raising a burden, but do not assist him in laying it down,