Essay About Pythagoras Of Samos And Ancient Greek Science

Ancient Greek Science and Astronomy
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The Ancient Greek culture has had such an impact on the world that no matter
where you look youre sure to find something Greek about it. Out of all the
areas that the Greek culture is famous for there are two that tend to exert
themselves into our own culture even today. That would be their Science and
Astronomy fields.
If one were to look up in a library books about ancient Greek science and astronomy
they would have a mountain of books to sift through. There seem to be so many
individuals who have contributed towards the great scientific and astronomic
revelations that the list of names seems to go on and on. Many of the theories
that were structured in the ancient Greek culture are still put to use today.
The goal of this paper is to point out and describe just a few ancient Greek
individuals and their works that whom without their work we might never have
advanced as far and as fast as we have technologically or mentally.
Sometimes described as the first pure mathematician, Pythagoras of Samos, was
a very important developer of modern mathematics. Unfortunately there is, in
comparison, little known about his and his followers achievements for they
worked in a secret society where they kept strictly to themselves.
An odd note about the details of Pythagorass life is that the information
that is written about him in early biographies is done so by authors who make
him out to be a god-like being that has divine powers bestowed upon him. The
information that can be collected on Pythagoras is of great historical importance
due to how early of a record it is. Some believe this information to be accurate
while others think of it as mere legend.
Pythagoras was the founder of a philosophical and religious school in Croton,
which is a city on the east of the heel of Italy, where he wasthe head of a
society that had a circle of close, loyal followers called mathematikoi. The
mathematikoi never left the society, had no personal possessions and they were
all vegetarians. Pythagoras personally taught all the mathematikoi and shared
with them five strict beliefs. The first belief was “that at its deepest
level, reality is mathematical in nature.” The second was “that philosophy
can be used for spiritual purification.” The third being “that the
soul can rise to union with the divine.” The fourth was “that certain
symbols have a mystical significance.” The fifth and last was “that
all brother of the order should observe strict loyalty and secrecy.”
There was also a not so strict group of followers known as the akousmatics who
only attended the society during the day. They were allowed to live in their
own homes, have personal possessions and were not required to be vegetarians.
Pythagoras and his followers were not the kind of mathematicians that you might
think of in our modern society at, say, a university where they set out to solve
great mathematical equations. Quite differently they only sought to understand
the principles of mathematics, the concept of number, the concepts of different
mathematical figures such as a triangle and the abstract idea of a proof.
Today with our use of pure mathematical abstraction it is said that it is quite
difficult to appreciate the genius behind Pythagoras and his followers contribution.
Pythagoras believed that all relations could be reduced to number relations.
Aristotle wrote, “The Pythagoreanhaving been brought up in the study
of mathematics, thought that all things are numbers…and that the whole
cosmos is a scale and a number.”
Where Pythagorass studies are linked to modern studies is when he would study
the properties of even and odd number, triangular numbers, perfect numbers and
others like them. The only difference was that Pythagoras believed “his”
numbers had personalities such as masculine or feminine, perfect or incomplete,
beautiful or ugly. Though modern mathematics has discarded these thoughts for
being irrelative we still see hints of its impact in fiction and poetry.
One example of Pythagorass feelings of personality towards numbers was the
number Ten (10). He insisted it was “the very best” number because
it contained the first four integers – one, two, three, and four [1 + 2 + 3
+ 4 = 10]. When written in dot notation these numbers formed a perfect triangle.
Taken directly from Thomas Heath who was a civil servant and also one of the
leading world experts on the history of mathematics is a list of theorems attributed
to Pythagoras and his followers: (i) The