no historical likeness exists
c. 570 – c. 495 BCESamos / Croton, ancient Greece
Pythagoras of Samos
The world has integers built into it, most visibly in the consonances of music.
A short story
An ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher whose followers (the Pythagoreans) believed that the universe is shaped by number. He is credited (perhaps unfairly: the Babylonians knew the trick centuries earlier) with the right-triangle theorem. He is more securely credited with discovering that musical intervals are integer ratios: a string half as long sounds an octave higher; two-thirds as long, a fifth. The discovery launched two thousand years of mathematical thinking about music and shape.
In their own words
All is number.
Attributed (perhaps apocryphally) to Pythagoras by ancient sources; the doctrine is well-attested for the early Pythagorean school.
The lab their idea turned into
Triangle Lab
Three sides. One right angle. One famous equation.
Open Triangle Lab →