Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Theorem

Pythagoras (born c. 570 BCE, Samos, Ionia [Greece]—died c. 500–490 BCE, Metapontum, Lucanium [Italy]) Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the Pythagorean brotherhood that, although religious in nature, formulated principles that influenced the thought of Plato and Aristotle and contributed to the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy.

The Origins of Pythagoras

Pythagoras himself likely wrote no books, and Pythagoreans invariably supported their doctrines by indiscriminately citing their master’s authority. Pythagoras, however, is generally credited with the theory of the functional significance of numbers in the objective world and in music. Other discoveries often attributed to him (the incommensurability of the side and diagonal of a square, for example, and the Pythagorean theorem for right triangles) were probably developed only later by the Pythagorean school. More probably, the bulk of the intellectual tradition originating with Pythagoras himself belongs to mystical wisdom rather than to scientific scholarship.

Where did it start?