Mathematicians

Ancient Greek Mathematicians By: Sam The Ancient Greek people harbored among them some very influential people, and among these influential people are those who laid the foundation for modern mathematics. Practices the ancient Greeks invented more than two thousand years ago are still in use today. Brilliant mathematicians spent their entire lives trying to find the perfect formula to do geometrical functions that we take for granted today. Pythagoras is someone who many of us would be familiar with. His famous theorem, called the Pythagorean Theorem, is known to calculate the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle. However, the theorem actually works with any triangle as long as you know the angle between sides //a// and //b//, the two legs of the triangle[2]. See diagram, left. Much of what we know, or think we know, about Pythagoras’ life was written hundreds of years after he died, so the reliability of it is called into question. He wrote nothing, and no one who knew him wrote about him either. About 100 BCE, people began to portray Pythagoras in a greatly glorified light, as an almost godly figure. It is because of this that we cannot really take anything written about his life very seriously. By that time, he was thought of not as a mathematician, but rather as a religious expert who knew everything about ritual and the afterlife, and was said to be able to be in two places at once and have a thigh of gold[7]. He was probably born on the island of Samos around 570 BCE, and traveled to Egypt, where he studied under Themistoclea[10].We do think that he founded the Pythagorean Brotherhood, though it was more of a cult than a mathematical society. Pythagoreans were forbidden from eating meat, because Pythagoras believed that animals should be shown mercy[9]. They were also barred from eating beans, because they were too similar to meat. In the Brotherhood, men and women were treated equally, and property was a communal possession. He believed it was more honorable to watch and observe rather than to participate. He attributed values to all the numbers from one to ten. Pythagoras took credit for everything his Brotherhood discovered, so we really don’t know what he did himself[2]. One thing that is certain, though, is that Plato and Aristotle were greatly influenced by Pythagoras’ philosophy. It is unknown when or how Pythagoras died, but it is claimed that he taught Empedocles, who is credited with the idea of the Four Classical Elements. If this is true, then he must have lived well past 500 BCE[7]. Aristotle is probably another familiar name. He was born in 384 BCE in Stagira, a colony of Greece on the Chalcidice peninsula of Thrace[3]. His father was Nicomachus, court physician to the King of Macedonia. At the age of 17, his father died, and he traveled to Athens to study under Plato[11]. It is notable that he and Plato had a number of disagreements about philosophy but still remained friends[3]. After Plato’s death in 347 BCE, twenty years later, Aristotle left for Assos in Mysia, where his friend Hermeas was ruling. He married Hermeas’ niece, Pythias, and began to delve into marine biology. Around 344 BCE, Hermeas was killed in a revolt by his former subjects, and Aristotle went back to Stagira, to tutor King Philip’s son, Alexander[8]. The 13 year old boy would grow into Alexander the Great and conquer the Persian Empire. In the year 335 BCE, Alexander ascended to the throne and departed on his Asiatic campaign[1], upon which, Aristotle’s work being finished, returned to Athens where he founded his own school. He called it the Lyceum, after the god Apollo. Students of the school were called Peripatetics, because of either the existence of an ambulatory on the campus or because Aristotle had a habit of walking around as he lectured. Around this time, Pythias died and Aristotle married Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nicomachus, who was named after Aristotle’s father[11]. When Alexander died in 323 BCE, the Athenian government was overthrown and a new hate rose through the population for anything Macedonian. Fearing for his safety, Aristotle left to Chalcis on the island of Euboea, where he died of natural causes the following year[3]. Aristotle was a true polymath and made contributions to various fields of science, morality, logic, and the arts[11]. Euclid of Alexandria is often known as the Father of Geometry, or at least Euclidean Geometry, of which we are most familiar with[6]. Sources disagree on whether he was born around 300 BCE[6], 330[5] BCE, or 325 BCE[4]. He is often confused with Euclid of Megara, who lived around the same time he did[5]. It is possible that Euclid received his training from students of Plato, for he embodied a similar philosophy but would have been born after Plato’s death[4]. The only things we know about Euclid are from the Greek Philosopher Proclus, who lived around 450 CE and wrote a summary of great Greek mathematicians[6]. Euclid’s most famous work is //Stoicheia// or //Elements// and is a comprehensive 13 volume compilation of all known geometric knowledge. His book has been reprinted in more than a thousand different editions and is the most widely used textbook ever. It is thought to be the second best-selling book of all time after the Bible[5]. In conclusion, Greek mathematicians were some of the greatest the planet has ever known. These men were centuries ahead of their time; while the Egyptians and Babylonians built marvelous constructions and enormous architecture, the Greeks were thinkers, and thought up ways to perform proofs that we use thousands of years later.

Works Cited 1. "Alexander the Great (Alexander of Macedon)." //History of Macedonia and the Macedonian Nation//. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. . 2. Allen, Don. "Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans ." //Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University//. Texas A&M University, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. . 3. "Aristotle (384-322 BCE)." //Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy//. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. . 4. "Euclid." //MacTutor History of Mathematics//. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. . 5. "Euclid." //Math Open Reference//. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. . 6. "Euclid (Greek mathematician)." //Britannica Online Encyclopedia//. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. . 7. Huffman, Carl. "Pythagoras." //Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy//. Stanford University, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. . 8. Knight, Kevin. "Aristotle." //New Advent//. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01713a.htm>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">9. "Pythagoras." //Animal Rights History//. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. <http://www.animalrightshistory.org/animal-rights-antiquity/pythagoras.htm>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">10. "Pythagoras of Samos." //MacTutor History of Mathematics//. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. <http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Pythagoras.html>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">11. Shields, Christopher. "Aristotle." //Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy//. Stanford University, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/>.