Pythagoras of Samos: life and work
The life and work of Pythagoras of Samos is something uncertain by the absence of testimonies of the time- they have been written about echoes. What his followers, called Pythagoreans, verbally transmitted from one generation to another, are known until they were cited by philosophers and historians. Fragments that coincide by saying that it was the philosopher and first pure mathematician born in Greece in the middle of the sixth century.C.
The native of Samos Island is famous in history for attributing notions and findings that helped the development of mathematics and other sciences. Pythagoras was judged by his contemporaries for hearing supernatural voices, the same ones that helped him combine mathematics and music. His contribution is in force in the theorem of Pythagoras, in concepts of geometry and arithmetic, astronomy and music, without leaving aside his religious influence.
Who was Pythagoras of Samos?
Pythagoras is one of the most influential men in history. He was born in Samos, island of Greece located east of the Aegean Sea. He lived from 569 to approximately 475 ahead of Christ. He is known as philosopher, pure mathematician and founder of the Pythagorean school.
He was the son of a Lebanese named Mnesarco and the one born in Greece, Pythais. There are no details of their childhood or youth, there are more vestiges of their adulthood, multifaceted, wise. Knowledge that according to various authors came from his trips and his interactions by Egypt, Arabia, Phenicia and Babylon, including India.
The life and work of Pythagoras of Samos do not rest in any text or evidence of their time. They have been rebuilt from oral testimonies that passed from one generation to another and that began to be cited in writings almost two centuries after their death. Arguments based on what was disseminated by his followers, called Pythagorean.
What did?
In the sixth century to.C, Pythagoras of Samos founded Crotona, Italy, a philosophical-political-religious school composed of philosophers, mathematicians, astrologers and musicians. Its members called themselves mathematikoi or mathematics. They had as a premise that “all things that can be known have a number;Well, it is not possible that without number nothing can be conceived or known ".
From the aforementioned Pythagorean school, all the works that are awarded to the philosopher of Samos arise today. Among them philosophical and mathematical principles, notions that contributed to the development of astronomy and music. The Pythagoras theorem, the immeasurability of the diagonal of a square, the significance of the numbers in the real world and in music. The arithmetic relationships of the musical scale are attributed to Pythagoras.
Pythagoras and mathematicians were rigorous and also had an optimistic conception of life after life. His discipline- although mystical and mysterious- was aimed at the preservation of the soul. They respected life in all their forms and did not consume meat because this involved eating an animal in which they could be reborn in the next life. The belief of soul transmigration brought many followers.
What were its most outstanding characteristics?
At an era, Pythagoras of Samos wanted to be seen as a supernatural being, depending on the feats that are imputed to him. More is clear was an understanding of his time, a man sensitive to which in addition to the pure essence of mathematics he was attracted to music and literature. In the fragments that talk about their life, a performer of the Lira, a writer of poems and interpreter of Homero is described.
Natural researcher. It is assumed that scientific information did not travel quickly in their time, so their trips are associated with the search for knowledge, contact with the source.
Pythagoras of Samos was a leader. Created and governed the Pythagorean school that spread rapidly after 500 to.C and influenced intellectuals from later times. The conviction of his doctrine was such that he survived continuous attacks and suppressions.
Before, he would have been known for his notions of ethics and his rejection of the king of Persia Cambises II after the invasion of Egypt. The Greek Jámblico philosopher of Calcis, review in the third century D.C that Pythagoras arrived in Babylon as a war prisoner. This after the alliance with Polícrates and Cambises II was broken, he took Heliopolis, northeast of Cairo, and Memphis, south of the Nile River Delta, cities of Bajo Egypt.
Summary biography
Pythagoras of Samos, philosopher and mathematician born in the seventh century to.C. He was a disciple of such, Anaximandro and Anaximas de Miletus, founders of the so -called Jonic School. Hence his interest first to solve the origin and constitution of the universe seen as a whole. Idea that would later abandon metaphysics.
When they are banished by Polícrates, in the seventh century.C, the original of Samos emigrated from the island. He settled in front of the Gulf of Taranto, Ionian Sea, in the city of Crotona. He founded the Pythagorean school, composed of intellectuals and listeners (accusmatics) who distinguished themselves by the practice of secrecy and belief in metempsychosis. They gathered merits for the reincarnation of their soul, they believed in life after death.
From the Pythagorean school theories and concepts arise that are attributed essentially to Pythagoras of Samos. The Pythagoras theorem, the irrationality of the square root of 2, the arithmetic mean, polygonal numbers and the creation of tetraktys, in mathematics. In astronomy, said the Lucero del Alba was the same Lucero in the afternoon, then it would be revealed that it was the planet Venus. He also believed in the harmony of the celestial spheres. The Pythagorean I did Syracuse was the discoverer of the rotation of the earth around its axis.
The death of Pythagoras occurred in Metaponto, province of Matera, Italy. It is said wine at the hands of Cylon, ambitious Athenian nobleman, rejected by the Pythagorean brotherhood. Made by the Jámblico Greek philosopher, who claims that Samos’s genius prevailed before the attack. Other authors cite that Pythagoras was starving. The uncertainty of his death does not opaque the path carved into science, call mathematics or astronomy;In art, reasoning and religion.
What was your thought?
Pythagoras of Samos was an innovative. He conceived man as a being with soul and intelligence, of invisible spirit, created in harmony. The universe for him were fractions of a natural, human and divine world. Reality had mathematical nature, in its purest value. Philosophy leads to the sanitation of the spirit. The soul can rise to melt with the divine. Mysticism is also in symbols. Defended loyalty and secrecy.
What were your main contributions?
Pythagoras contributed to the development of mathematics, astronomy and medicine, among other sciences. His interest was focused on the principle or concept of things, numbers, geometric figures and their demonstration, even if it were abstractly.
He contributed with the formal demonstration of the known Pythagoras theorem, which refers to the rectangle triangle. The concept was already handled in Babylon and India, but he proved that "the sum of the squares of the categories is equal to the square of the hypotenuse". He also studied the proportions between the entire numbers, distinguishing the arithmetic mean, the geometric mean and the harmonic mean. Discovered the perfect numbers and polygonal numbers.
For the philosopher, things are numbers and struggled to demonstrate this relationship also in astronomy and music. Formulated the laws of harmony and arithmetic relationships of the musical scale.
Plato describes him as a founder of a way of life aimed at immortality, the reincarnation of the soul. Through his school he imposed the belief in the transmigration of the soul, metempsychosis or reincarnation.
What is Samos’s Pythagoras Arjé?
Pythagoras claimed that the numbers were the Arjé of all things. His philosophy was both scientific and religious. The numbers were then valued as a relationship, a structure, which was applied to mathematics, music and then to everything that constitutes reality. They were the reason or principle of everything real.
What school did it belong to?
Pythagoras from Samos received the early influence of the Ionic School, developed in the Greek neighborhood of Miletus during the seventh century to.C. It is said he was a student of such and his disciples Anaximandro and Anaximmeneos, of whom he adopted a methodological vision- scientific- of nature.
The story then takes it to Italy, where the counting of his trips and knowledge resulted in the creation of a new philosophical and religious school. Organization that would also acquire political nuance.
The Pythagoras school was made up of intellectual men and women whose thought was dominated by mathematics and mysticism. His badge was a five -pointed star, Pentagram, recognized as a health symbol. It came to be seen as a brotherhood.
There is little or no physical evidence of your time. The magnificence of the character, touched in later centuries, has led to award Pythagoras almost all thoughts, theories and discoveries of the Pythagoreans.
What were your most important phrases?
- Educate children and it will not be necessary to punish men
- Educate is not giving a career to live, but tempering the soul for the difficulties of life.
- The soul is a chord;Dissonance, your disease.
- Earth gives food profusely and peaceful food. And it gives you foods that are free of death and blood.
- The principle is half at all.
- You will see that the evils of men are the result of their choice;And that the source of good looks for her far, when they carry her inside her heart.
- Oh legislator! Do not give me laws for peoples, but peoples for laws.
What were your most outstanding works?
No works by Pythagoras. As with other presocratic philosophers, how much or little it is known has been cited centuries after his death. However, it is awarded:
The Pythagoras theorem. Reference to the right triangle, states: "The sum of the squares of the categories is equal to the square of the hypotenuse". He stands out in history for the firm demonstration of the mathematical concepts that were already known in Babylon and India.
The discovery of irrational numbers. It represented an event for the same Pythagoreans, which until that moment believed that all the magnitudes were commensurable. He also discovered the perfect numbers and friendly numbers.
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