Pythagoras

Samos

Around 530 BC he emigrated to Croton in southern Italy: supposedly out of distaste for the tyrant Polycrates.

💡 Did you know? Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos but emigrated and founded his school in southern Italy.

All is number

The world is ordered by mathematical ratios: from music to the orbits of the heavens.

💡 Did you know? „All is number“: the Pythagoreans believed the whole world rests on numerical ratios.

Pythagorean theorem

Babylonians and Egyptians had long known the relationship in practice: yet the fame stuck to him.

💡 Did you know? The theorem a² + b² = c² was known long before Pythagoras: but the Greeks credited him with the first proof.

simple number ratios

2:1 gives the octave, 3:2 the fifth: music as audible mathematics.

💡 Did you know? Pythagoras discovered that harmonious notes correspond to simple ratios: the octave, for instance, to 2:1.

harmony of the spheres

The planets produce tones as they orbit: Kepler was still searching for this world harmony.

💡 Did you know? The „harmony of the spheres“ is the idea that the circling heavenly bodies produce an inaudible music.

transmigration of souls

The immortal soul is reborn into new bodies: even animals; hence the Pythagoreans ate no meat.

💡 Did you know? The Pythagoreans believed in the transmigration of souls; the soul is reborn after death in a new body.

a departed friend's

He begged the owner to stop beating the dog: the anecdote comes from Xenophanes, probably meant mockingly.

💡 Did you know? According to legend, Pythagoras stopped a dog from being beaten: he recognised in its whimpering the voice of a dead friend.

Croton

School, order and lifestyle reform in one: shared property, exercises in silence, daily self-examination.

💡 Did you know? In Croton, Pythagoras founded a strict community with shared property, vows of silence and dietary rules.

philosophy

He refused to be called 'wise', preferring to be merely a lover of wisdom: so the ancient tradition.

💡 Did you know? The anecdote is not certain: like so much about Pythagoras.

none

The teachings were passed on orally within the order: what stems from him personally is disputed to this day.

💡 Did you know? Pythagoras himself left no writings: all we know of him comes from pupils and later authors.

Metapontum

After unrest against the Pythagoreans in Croton; the brotherhood was later violently destroyed.

💡 Did you know? After his order was violently broken up, Pythagoras died around 500 BC in Metapontum in southern Italy.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras was a Greek thinker and mathematician whose school declared numbers the key to the whole world.

💡 Did you know? He is said to have been a committed vegetarian and even forbidden his pupils to eat beans.