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Pythagoras (569-500 B.C.E) was born in the island of Samos in Greece. He was often referred to as the first mathematician. He died in Metapontum Lucania, Italy. Pythagoras was well educated, he played the lyre, knew poetry and recited Homer. He was interested in mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and music.

Pythagoras went to Egypt in about 530 B.C to study the priests in temples. He picked up some of there beliefs which he took with him later to Italy for example, the codes of secrecy, striving for purity, and refusal to eat beans or to wear animal skins as clothing. Ten years later when Persia invaded Egypt Pythagorean was taken to Babylon where he met the Magoi who were priests who taught him sacred rites. "He also reached the acme of perfection in arithmetic and music and other mathematical sciences taught by the Babylonians" according to a Syrian philosopher. in 520 Pythagoras returned to Samos and began a school called The Semicircle. The Samos leaders weren't fond of his way of teachings so he left after rejecting thier desire for him to become involved in politics.

Pythagoras settled in Crotona a Greek Colony in Italy in 518 B.C, and founded a philosophical and religious school where his many followers lived and worked. He made his own society where The Pythagoreans followed his rules. They didn't have any personal possessions and were all vegetarians. They all worked on theories and discoveries Pythagoras made which were:

· All things are numbers. Mathematics is the basis for everything, and geometry is the highest form of mathematical studies. The physical world can understood through mathematics.

· The soul resides in the brain, and is immortal. It moves from one being to another, sometimes from a human into an animal, through a series of reincarnations called transmigration until it becomes pure. Pythagoras believed that both mathematics and music could purify

· Numbers have personalities, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.

· The world depends upon the interaction of opposites, such as male and female, lightness and darkness, warm and cold, dry and moist, light and heavy, fast and slow.

· Certain symbols have a mystical significance.

· All members of the society should observe strict loyalty and secrecy.

No one really knows whether the Theorem was origianlly Pythagoreas because of the secrecy of his society, but The Pythagoreans gave him credit for "

  • The sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles.

  • The Theorem of Pythagoras - for a right-angled triangle the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. The Babylonians understood this 1000 years earlier, but Pythagoras proved it.

  • Constructing figures of a given area and geometrical algebra. For example they solved various equations by geometrical means.

  • The discovery of irrational numbers is attributed to the Pythagoreans, but seems unlikely to have been the idea of Pythagoras because it does not align with his philosophy the all things are numbers, since number to him meant the ratio of two whole numbers.

  • The five regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, dodecahedron). It is believed that Pythagoras knew how to construct the first three but not last two.

  • Pythagoras taught that Earth was a sphere in the center of the Kosmos (Universe), that the planets, stars, and the universe were spherical because the sphere was the most perfect solid figure. He also taught that the paths of the planets were circular. Pythagoras recognized that the morning star was the same as the evening star, Venus. "