Most of us have heard the name Pythagoras before in math class. He is the guy who supposedly discovered and proved the theorem that allows us to find the hypotenuse of a right triangle. The infamous equation being: a^2+b^2=c^2, where c is the hypotenuse. Interested in about how Pythagoras came up with this theorem, I decided to do some research on him and found out some information that might be a surprise to most of us that aren’t mathematicians.
Pythagoras (580-500 BCE), grew up on an island named Samos which was in the Aegean Sea (current day Mediterranean Sea) (Rudman 249). Growing up on an island Pythagoras was probably one of the very first to realize the earth was not flat. He could see the circular horizon all around him, as well as see boats sail passed the horizon and come back (Rudman 250). At some point in his life he went onto study under Egyptians and Chaldeans and then opened up a school in Crotona, which is now southern Italy (Mankiewicz 24). This school was more of a cult or secret society in which information would only be passed to a select group of people (Mankiewicz 24). This society has been named the Pythagorean Brotherhood, where he was treated like a god (Rudman 252). Some of his students ended up crediting some of their own discoveries to Pythagoras because of his godlike stature (Rudman 252).
The theorem which was mentioned above was well known way before Pythagoras came along. Pythagoras actually learned this rule from the Egyptians (Mankiewicz 26). Within the last 100 years there has been some archeological discoveries which lead us to believe that the Babylonians where the first ones to understand the concept of a^2+b^2=c^2 (Mankiewicz 21). Plimpton 322 is the name of this stone that proves the Pythagorean theorem; this stone dates around 1800-1650 BC more than 1000 years before Pythagoras is born (Mankieiwicz 21).
Pythagoras is a shady character in the math community. He ran a cult like school who studied math as if they were studying the bible at church. He also seemed to take a lot of things from other cultures and teachers, teach it to his pupils claiming it was his own. But throughout the years we have discovered the truth; the Pythagorean Theorem was not invented nor discovered by Pythagoras. It was the ancient Babylonians who first discovered this and Pythagoras just made it popular in western civilization.
Mankiewicz, Richard. The Story of Mathematics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Rudman, Peter. How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years. New York: Promethus Books, 2007.
Picture Soure-http://www.mathsisgoodforyou.com/images/people/pythagoras1.jpg
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