Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Birth and death date: Unknown

Areas of interest: Politics, Mathematics, Metaphysics, Ethics, Music
Influenced: Philolaus, Empedocles, Plato, Alcmaeon of Croton, Euclid, Johannes Kepler, Parmenides, Hippasus
Philosophical era: Ancient philosophy
Schools of thought: Pythagoreanism
Influenced by: Thales of Miletus, Anaximander, Pherecydes of Syros, Themistoclea

Pythagoras discovered that harmonious intervals in music are based on simple rational numbers. This led to a fascination with integers and mystic numerology. The Pythagoras Theorem was known long before Pythagoras, but he is often credited with the first proof. Apastambha proved it in India at about the same time but some conjecture that Pythagoras visited to India and learned of the proof there.

Pythagoras theorem states that "in a right-angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two other sides, that is, a² + b² = c²."

a² + b² = c².

The Pythagoras theorem was known and used by the Babylonians and Indians centuries before Pythagoras, but it is possible that he may have been the first one to introduce it to the Greeks. Some historians of mathematics have even suggested that he or his students may have constructed the first proof.

Pythagoras was never credited with having proved any theorem in antiquity. Furthermore, the manner in which the Babylonians employed Pythagorean numbers implies that they knew that the principle was generally applicable.