9 Aristotle said the following in his Metaphysics: If Thales was the first philosophical philosopher, then Pythagoras was the first mathematical philosopher since he was the first to combine philosophy with mathematics. Prior to the Pythagoreans, mathematics mainly had been done for practical purposes such as commerce and construction. 8 People had been doing mathematics for centuries, but Pythagoras started the first school dedicated to discovering mathematical theorems and principles. Regardless of his relationship to the theorem, Pythagoras is considered the first mathematician. 7 He probably came up with a proof for the formula and that is most likely how his name became attached to it. We are all familiar with Pythagoras from studying the Pythagorean theorem in school where we learned the relationship between the sides of a right triangle as a 2 + b 2 = c 2 Even though Pythagoras’s name is attached to the theorem, the equation was widely known over 1000 years before he was born. Pythagoras prohibited his followers from eating beans since he said that they contained the souls of the dead. He believed in the transmigration of souls and reincarnation, beliefs he possibly picked up while traveling to India. The Pythagoreans had some strange practices. 6 In this way, it reminds me of a medieval European monastery. The school that he founded at Croton, an Italian school of philosophy, was partly philosophical and partly religious. Just like Asia Minor, southern Italy and Sicily had been populated with Greek colonies. He settled in at a Greek town called Kroton (modern Croton) on the east coast of southern Italy. Around the age of 40, he moved to Italy, apparently because he did not get along with the local tyrant at Samos. Local tyrants can be difficult to get along with. He was born on the island of Samos, off the coast of what is today’s western Turkey. 5 Like the Milesian philosophers that we’ve studied – Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes – Pythagoras was an Ionian by birth. 4 We do know that he was born around 570 BC and died around 495 BC. Similar to the the other Presocratics, we know almost nothing about his life. 3 Pythagoras and his followers lived in a highly secretive community.
Like Socrates, he did not leave any writings, but also like Socrates, his followers attributed their ideas to him. Consequently, when we deal with Pythagoras, we are dealing with an enigmatic figure who is partly mythical and partly real. 2 In addition to all of that, he did not invent the Pythagorean theorem. These are just some of the legends that surround this historical figure. He also was renowned for having a “golden thigh.” 1 Once, he convinced a bear to stop harassing the townspeople and the bear gave its word that it would. He talked to the animals and they listened to him. Pythagoras was a demigod who went around performing miracles. Pythagoras in the School of Athens painting by Raphael