Your Teachers Gave Credit To This Kooky Mathematician For Something He Never Did

And Forced You To Memorize It!

Along with Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, Pythagoras sits high on the list of the greatest thinkers of all time. After all, we credit him with that whole A² + B²= C² thing known as the Pythagorean Theorem. A guy who could come up with something like that must have been pretty level-headed. I mean, it’s not like he could have been a cult leader or something . . . right?

You know, it’s funny how things aren’t always what they seem.

In the Beginning

Well, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but we don’t need to go back that far. It was in the 6th century B.C. that Pythagoras was born on the Greek island of Samos. Then around 520 BC, he moved to Magna Graecia, (Great Greece) in southern Italy. There were many Greek cities in Magna Graecia, but Pythagoras settled himself down in the prosperous city of Croton. So was he busy working on Geometric equations that would make a high schooler’s head spin?

Nope. He was busy working on his cult leader skills.

All Hail Pythagoras!

Pythagoras wasn’t the only guy with a cult at the time, there were cults dedicated to Dionysius and Orpheus as well. People were looking for something different, and people like Pythagoras were willing to provide it.

Thaggy was quite the equal opportunity guy, allowing anyone to join him— men, women, children — he treated them all with respect. He must have been quite the charmer because his group, known as the Pythagoreans, grew to great numbers and had political influence in Southern Italy's politics for around 150 years.

And why shouldn’t they love him? People talked about the guy with great reverence. According to the Pythagoreans, there were three types of beings: the divine, the human, and those like Pythagoras. Not only could he perform miracles, but he had a thigh of gold, and the ability to bilocate. Obviously, the guy hobnobbed with the gods, and who wouldn’t want to be around a guy like that?

Thaggy didn’t write down his philosophies, and neither did his disciples. In fact, they required new recruits to keep a vow of silence for five years. It’s therefore hard to know exactly what the Pythagoreans practiced, and there are many conflicting views.

How to be A Pythagorean

Here are some of the rules that have come down through the ages that we associate with the Pythagoreans:

Do not bury the dead in wool

Do not eat beans

Do not pick up crumbs that fall from the table

Do not eat white roosters

Do not eat sacred fish

Do not break bread for bread brings friends together

Put salt on the table to remind you of what is just

Put your right shoe on first

Do not travel the high road

Confine your lovemaking to the winter months

In the early days, Pythagoreans could eat meat, as long as it was an animal that could be sacrificed. Later members, however, were strict vegetarians. And could you blame them? After all, they believed a person could be reincarnated as an animal — would you want to take the chance of eating great Aunt Ruth?

Let’s Talk About the Bean

Because there are many stories that surround the anti-bean rhetoric. The most interesting one being Thaggy thought souls on their return trip to earth would spend time in a bean before their reincarnation. There are also those who say he connected them with Hades, obviously giving the bean a bad aura. Of course, there are those who feel he didn't allow beans for more practical reasons such as the negative effects they have on one's digestive system and the disruption it would cause to the perfume of the societies meetings.

One of the most interesting stories regarding the bean has to do with Thaggies death. The story goes that a dissenter rallied some of the locals against him then hunted him down at a friends house. Pythagoras escaped the now burning house only to give up when he came upon a bean field. It was sacred ground and he would rather die than trample on those souls.

But When Did He Come Up With His Theorem?

When indeed.

There is no evidence that Pythagoras was famous for his mathematical mind. No one associated him with what we know as the Pythagorean theorem at all. Not Plato, not Aristotle, not any of their friends. It’s mostly based on this ity-bity line — “When Pythagoras found that famous diagram, in honor of which he offered a glorious sacrifice of oxen.”

That’s it.

In fact, the Babylonians and the Chinese probably knew about it before Thaggy was even born.

Now, this doesn’t mean Thaggy didn’t like numbers — he loved them in one of those slobbery kid kind of ways. To him, numbers had magical powers and if you treated them right, they would lead you to spiritual purification. So what he was known for — aside from being an expert in religious rituals and the fate of souls after death — was his worship of numbers, particularly the first four integers and the number ten. Ten was like super-man in the numbers world. They had a special triangle called a Tetractys consisting of ten points. There was even a special prayer to honor it. So see, he had something to do with triangles after all. Even if it wasn't what you were told in Geometry class.

Notes and Sources:

— In case you forgot, the Pythagorean theorem says that the square of the hypotenuse of a triangle is equal to the sum of the other two sides squared.

— It's important to note that there are scholars who believe Pythagoras had an important role in the development of Geometry. They point to early writers who call him a wise man, and as pursuing inquiry, although many feel information such as this is much too general to support the claim.

Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief History, Charles H. Kahn