Chances are, you’ve heard his name. Sometime in a school math class, you likely met the Pythagorean theorem: a² + b² = c². It’s a neat, reliable rule for right-angled triangles, a cornerstone of geometry. But what if I told you the man behind the theorem was less of a straightforward mathematician and more of a mystic, a guru, and the leader of a secretive brotherhood that had some… peculiar rules?
Welcome back to Sequentia! Today, we’re peeling back the layers of the legend to meet Pythagoras – the man who believed the entire universe was built from numbers.
Who Was Pythagoras?
Living in ancient Greece around 500 BCE, Pythagoras of Samos was a shadowy but hugely influential figure. We have no writings from the man himself; everything we know comes from his followers and later historians, leaving him shrouded in myth. He was a philosopher and a mystic who traveled widely, absorbing knowledge from Egypt and Babylon before settling in Croton, Southern Italy.
It was here he founded his famous school, but “school” is an understatement. It was more like a secretive commune or a religious brotherhood.
The Pythagorean Brotherhood: A Cult of Numbers
Initiates into the Pythagorean brotherhood lived a disciplined, communal lifestyle, bound by a strict code of conduct and an oath of secrecy. Their core belief was a radical one: “All is number.” They believed that numbers weren’t just tools for counting; they were the fundamental building blocks of reality, governing everything from the harmony of music to the movement of the planets.
This obsession with numbers led to a life governed by some famously strange rules, including:
- Do not eat beans. (The reasons are debated – were they sacred, or did they just cause… disruptions?)
- Do not stir a fire with a sword.
- Do not look at your reflection in a mirror beside a lamp.
- Always put your right shoe on first.
For the Pythagoreans, mathematics was intertwined with spirituality, ethics, and daily life.
The Crisis of the “Unspeakable” Numbers
The brotherhood’s “all is number” philosophy was beautiful, but it had a fatal flaw built upon one critical assumption: that any number could be expressed as a ratio of two whole numbers (like 3/2 or 7/1). Today, we call these rational numbers.
Then came the discovery that shattered their worldview. According to legend, a Pythagorean named Hippasus was contemplating a simple right-angled triangle with two sides of length 1. Using their own famous theorem (1² + 1² = c²), he found the hypotenuse had a length equal to the square root of 2.
He tried to write √2 as a simple fraction, but he couldn’t. It was impossible. He had discovered an irrational number, a number that goes on forever without repeating. This was heresy! It proved that not everything in the universe could be contained by the neat, whole-number ratios they worshipped.
The legend takes a dark turn here. It’s said that Hippasus revealed his discovery to the outside world, breaking the brotherhood’s code of secrecy. For this transgression, the story goes, his fellow Pythagoreans took him out on a boat and drowned him, silencing the man who had discovered an “unspeakable” truth. While likely a myth, the story powerfully illustrates how seriously they took their numerical philosophy.
The Legacy of Pythagoras
So, the next time you use a² + b² = c², remember the man behind it. He was more than a geometer; he was a mystic who inspired a devoted following to believe that numbers held the secrets to the cosmos. His story is a powerful reminder that the search for patterns is an ancient human quest, one that blends logic with a sense of wonder and, sometimes, a touch of madness.
What are your thoughts on the blend of math and mysticism? Let us know in the comments!