Monday 26 November 2018

Great Mathematician Pythagoras

PYTHAGORUS
Pythagoras  (570 BC – 495 BC)  was an Ionian Greek philosopher and the eponymous founder of the Pythagoreanism movement.  He born at island of Samos. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and, through them, Western philosophy. Knowledge of his life is clouded by legend, but he appears to have been the son of Mnesarchus, a seal engraver on the island of Samos. Modern scholars disagree regarding Pythagoras's education and influences, but they do agree that, around 530 BC, he travelled to Croton, where he founded a school in which initiates were sworn to secrecy and lived a communal, ascetic lifestyle. This lifestyle entailed a number of dietary prohibitions, traditionally said to have included vegetarianism, although modern scholars doubt that he ever advocated for complete vegetarianism.
Pythagoras was credited with many mathematical and scientific discoveries, including the Pythagorean theorem, Pythagorean tuning, the five regular solids, the Theory of Proportions, the sphericity of the Earth, and the identity of the morning and evening stars as the planet Venus. He attributed various numbers and forms to physical elements for example 5 is the cause of colour,  6 is the cause of cold, 7 is the cause of health & 8 is the cause of love.
It was said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher ("lover of wisdom")  and that he was the first to divide the globe into five climatic zones. Classical historians debate whether Pythagoras made these discoveries, and many of the accomplishments credited to him likely originated earlier or were made by his colleagues or successors. Some accounts mention that the philosophy associated with Pythagoras was related to mathematics and that numbers were important, but it is debated to what extent, if at all, he actually contributed to mathematics or natural philosophy.



Contribution of Pythagorus:
In the field of  mathematics:

 The Pythagorean theorem: Pythagoras has commonly been given credit for discovering the Pythagorean theorem, a theorem in geometry that states that in a right-angled triangle the area of the square on the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of the other two sides—that is  a2+ b2= c2
The sum of the areas of the two squares on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse (c).
Although Pythagoras is most famous today for his alleged mathematical discoveries, classical historians dispute whether he himself ever actually made any significant contributions to the field. Many mathematical and scientific discoveries were attributed to Pythagoras, including his famous theorem, as well as discoveries in the fields of music, astronomy,  and medicine.
The Pythagorean theorem was known and used by the Babylonians and Indians centuries before Pythagoras, but it is possible that he may have been the first one to introduce it to the Greeks. Some historians of mathematics have even suggested that he—or his students—may have constructed the first proof.  Burkert rejects this suggestion as implausible,  noting that Pythagoras was never credited with having proved any theorem in antiquity.  Furthermore, the manner in which the Babylonians employed Pythagorean numbers implies that they knew that the principle was generally applicable, and knew some kind of proof, which has not yet been found in the (still largely unpublished) cuneiform sources.  Pythagoras's biographers state that he also was the first to identify the five regular solids  and that he was the first to discover the Theory of Proportions.

In the field of  music:
Pythagorean tuning and Pythagorean hammers:
According to legend, Pythagoras discovered that musical notes could be translated into mathematical equations when he passed blacksmiths at work one day and heard the sound of their hammers clanging against the anvils. Thinking that the sounds of the hammers were beautiful and harmonious, except for one, he rushed into the blacksmith shop and began testing the hammers.  He then realized that the tune played when the hammer struck was directly proportional to the size of the hammer and therefore concluded that music was mathematical.  However, this legend is demonstrably false, as these ratios are only relevant to string length (such as the string of a monochord), and not to hammer weight.
In the field of  astronomy
In ancient times, Pythagoras and his contemporary Parmenides of  Elea were both credited with having been the first to teach that the Earth was spherical, the first to divide the globe into five climactic zones,  and the first to identify the morning star and the evening star as the same celestial object. of the two philosophers, Parmenides has a much stronger claim to having been the first and the attribution of these discoveries to Pythagoras seems to have possibly originated from a pseudepigraphal poem.  Empedocles, who lived in Magna Graecia shortly after Pythagoras and Parmenides, knew that the earth was spherical.  By the end of the fifth century BC, this fact was universally accepted among Greek intellectuals.
Pythagorus had great interest in the properties of numbers and that he devoted considerable attention to the study of areas , volumes, properties and five regular solids. Under the influence of mysticism the pythagorus belived the unoversed to be composed of five elements and foe each of the five regular solids. Thus the earth arose from  the cube , fire came from the pyramid , air from the octahedron, water from the icosahedrons  and sphere  of the universe from the dodecahedron.


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