Pythagoras Scientific Biography

Pythagoras: The unusual life of the legendary Greek why Pythagoras, who left neither treatises, or any other works, is so famous and revered. What does the average Russian know about a person named our center for the development of intelligence? We will be honest: the name of Pythagoras in most people is associated with the famous theorem and no less famous multiplication table. Meanwhile, this person was a legendary person.

In the full sense of the word: only the legends and stories of other, also very respected people have reached us about his life and activity. So why is the Pythagoras, who did not leave behind either treatises or any other works, is so famous and revered? Beard, diadem and gift of beliefs, random people do not become historical personalities. This postulate is quite applicable to Pythagoras-a very unusual, versatile and even in something mysterious person.

He was born on the island of Samos in the family of a cutter on precious stones. Researchers believe that it was somewhere in the period BC. Early became known - both his knowledge and appearance: contemporaries described it as an unprecedented handsome man with a long beard and a golden diadem. He was lucky with the teachers: among his mentors were such people famous at that time as Ferekid S and Hermodamant.

The latter, for example, forced Pythagoras to learn whole songs from the Iliad and Odyssey to learn by heart and instilled a love of cognition of nature. And the first introduced the young philosopher with the famous scientist Thales Miletsky. He after conversations with Pythagoras advised him to go to comprehend science in Egypt. Life in the Greek cities of that time was, to put it mildly, difficult.

The tyrant Polykrat who ruled Samos did not particularly encourage his subjects to disturb the lands with Pythagoras, he had happened to Miletus after he left, and the Egyptians themselves did not eager to see the Greeks at home. Therefore, the fact that Pythagoras ended up in Egypt on the rights of an honorary guest speaks of his remarkable talent of belief. Of course, friends also helped - they reconciled Pythagoras and Polycrates and even took a letter of recommendation to the pharaoh Amazis from the tyrant.

But even Polycrat himself could not help his subject get into the churches of Memphis. Storengers were not allowed there. However, Pythagoras managed to charm the Amazis so much that he was allowed to go through a test for dedication to the priest's rank. And the Greek was able to do it! It was in Egypt that Pythagoras became one of the educated people of his time. But Pharaoh Amazis dies, and his successor almost immediately gets involved in the war with the Persians.

Those turned out to be stronger, among the huge number of their captives was Pythagoras. The scientist spent the next 12 years in Babylon and also did not lose time, communicating with local priests and comprehending science. Here he joined Eastern astrology and mysticism, and the Chaldean sages introduced him to astronomy, astrology, medicine and arithmetic. After liberation from captivity, already at the summer, Pythagoras returned to his homeland.

Mystic-idealist in Kroton in his philosophical views Pythagoras is an idealist. He was a sincere supporter of the “ideal rule” under the leadership of the sages and under the canopy of scientific and religious ideas of harmony and morality. Greece, experiencing the heyday of democracy, disappointed the scientist. He went to southern Italy, where at that time the Greeks founded from the Persian invasions founded the Colonia cities of Agrigent, Syracuse and Kroton.

Pythagoras chose the last city to create his own philosophical school. The gift of the conviction of the scientist was so great that soon the whole city establishment was bursting with either his society or sects. Even women who have been prohibited from attending such events tried by all the same as by hook or by crook. Chosen by a kind of spiritual father of the city of Kroton, Pythagoras created his own philosophical system, the center of which was the belief in the absolute unity of all things: nature, man, cosmos.

Pythagoras considered the ideal society one where power belongs to the Caste of the sages, and the unenlightened people subordinate to her at some points blindly, in others-intelligently, recognizing the spiritual superiority of the rulers. All this gradually began to enjoy the common people, which did not want to serve the interests of the roasted aristocracy, which is why Pythagora eventually had to stop street sermons and focus on the affairs of his school.

The monastery of silence and obedience to the Pythagoras School was quite unusual even at that time. Those who wanted to join the secret knowledge passed a trial period: for several years they did not have the right to pronounce a word, but only listened to the teacher, without asking any questions. This gave its fruits. Pythagoras was an extremely versatile scientist. He transferred knowledge to his students in mathematics, music, ethics, medicine, astronomy.

He created the famous Pythagorean Gamma, and expressed the ratio of musical tones in the language of mathematics. According to other sources, his students owns the idea of ​​the sphericalness of the Earth.Pythagoras laid the foundations of the theory of proportions, his merits are obvious in geometry.

By the way, historians are still arguing whether the famous Greek belongs to the proof of the theorem, later named after it. There is a version that he simply brought to Greece a decision known to the Babylonians long before that. But is it important? After all, not from the ancient Babylon, but from the Pythagoreans came to us that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the legs.

One of the most important merits of the legendary Greek was the study of numbers and their properties. Through numbers, he tried to comprehend not only abstract categories, but also concepts such as death, justice, man, woman, and so on. Pythagoreans saw justice and equality in a square. The symbol of constancy was the number 9, since all the multiple nine of the numbers have the sum of numbers - nine.

The eight among the Pythagoreans symbolized death, since the multiple eights have a decreasing sum of numbers. The number for Pythagoras was both matter and the form of the universe. The Pythagoreans followed the thesis: "All things are the essence of the number." What can I say: even the term "philosophy", according to, came up with Pythagoras. Pythagoras and myths of Ancient Greece around his name during his lifetime there were many myths.

They said that Pythagoras could control the spirits, to led, speak with animals, heal the deadly ill. However, he passed away quite prosaic: after the victory of democratic trends in Kroton, already as a summer old man, he went to a metapont and was killed there in one of the nightly hassles. The scientist did not leave behind scientific treatises. Nobody bothered his oral instructions to record, and the secret occult teaching for the elite was poorly suitable for widely distributed books.

Nevertheless, we perceive Pythagoras on a par with his famous fellow tribesmen Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and many other scientists and philosophers. He immortalized his name with the help of knowledge and skills that he received for his long life and managed to convey to the descendants.