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BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT SCIENTISTS
Pythagoras. Biography of a scientist
Directory / Biographies of great scientists
In the XNUMXth century BC, Ionia, a group of islands in the Aegean Sea, located off the coast of Asia Minor, became the center of Greek science and art. There, a son was born in the family of a goldsmith, seal cutter and engraver Mnesarchus. According to legend, in Delphi, where Mnesarchus and his wife Parthenisa arrived, either on business or on their honeymoon, an oracle predicted the birth of a son, who would become famous for centuries for his wisdom, deeds and beauty. God Apollo, through the mouth of an oracle, advises them to sail to Syria. The prophecy miraculously comes true - in Sidon, Parthenisa gave birth to a boy. And then, according to the ancient tradition, Parthenis takes the name Pythiades, in honor of the Pythian Apollo, and names his son Pythagoras, that is, predicted by the Pythia. The legend says nothing about the year of Pythagoras' birth; historical studies date its birth to about 580 BC. Returning from a journey, the happy father erects an altar to Apollo and surrounds the young Pythagoras with cares that could contribute to the fulfillment of divine prophecy. Mnesarchus had opportunities to give his son a good upbringing and education. Like any father, Mnesarchus dreamed that his son would continue his work - the craft of a goldsmith. Life judged otherwise. The future great mathematician and philosopher already in childhood showed great abilities for the sciences. From his first teacher, Hermodamas, Pythagoras receives knowledge of the basics of music and painting. For memory exercises, Hermodamas forced him to learn songs from the Odyssey and the Iliad. The first teacher instilled in young Pythagoras a love for nature and its mysteries. “There is another School,” said Hermodamas, “your feelings come from Nature, let it be the first and main subject of your teaching.” Several years have passed, and on the advice of his teacher, Pythagoras decides to continue his education in Egypt, with the priests. It was difficult to get to Egypt at that time, because the country was actually closed to the Greeks. And the ruler of Samos, the tyrant Polycrates, also did not encourage such trips. With the help of a teacher, Pythagoras manages to leave the island of Samos. But while Egypt is far away. He lives on the island of Lesbos with his relative Zoilus. There, Pythagoras meets the philosopher Ferekid, a friend of Thales of Miletus. Pythagoras studied astrology, the prediction of eclipses, the secrets of numbers, medicine and other sciences obligatory for that time from Pherekides. Pythagoras lived in Lesbos for several years. From there, the path of Pythagoras lies in Miletus - to the famous Thales, the founder of the first philosophical school in history. It is customary to trace the history of Greek philosophy from him. Pythagoras attentively listens in Miletus to the lectures of Thales, then already an XNUMX-year-old elder, and his younger colleague and student Anaximander, an outstanding geographer and astronomer. Pythagoras acquired a lot of important knowledge during his stay at the Milesian school. But Thales also advises him to go to Egypt to continue his education. And Pythagoras sets off. Before Egypt, he stops for a while in Phoenicia, where, according to legend, he studies with the famous Sidonian priests. While he lives in Phenicia, his friends ensure that Polycrates, the ruler of Samos, not only forgives the fugitive, but even sends him a letter of recommendation for Amasis, the pharaoh of Egypt. In Egypt, thanks to the patronage of Amasis, Pythagoras met the Memphis priests. He manages to get into the "holy of holies" - Egyptian temples, where strangers were not allowed. In order to join the mysteries of the Egyptian temples, Pythagoras, following tradition, takes initiation into the priesthood. Studying Pythagoras in Egypt contributes to the fact that he became one of the most educated people of his time. This period includes an event that changed his future life. Pharaoh Amasis died, and his successor on the throne did not pay the annual tribute to Cambyses, the Persian king, which was a sufficient reason for war. The Persians did not even spare the sacred temples. The priests were also persecuted, they were killed or taken prisoner. So Pythagoras also fell into Persian captivity. According to ancient legends, in captivity in Babylon, Pythagoras met with Persian magicians, joined Eastern astrology and mysticism, and became acquainted with the teachings of the Chaldean sages. The Chaldeans introduced Pythagoras to the knowledge accumulated by the Eastern peoples over many centuries: astronomy and astrology, medicine and arithmetic. These sciences among the Chaldeans largely relied on ideas about magical and supernatural forces, they gave a certain mystical sound to the philosophy and mathematics of Pythagoras ... Pythagoras spent twelve years in Babylonian captivity until he was released by the Persian king Darius Hystaspes, who heard about the famous Greek. Pythagoras is already sixty, he decides to return to his homeland in order to introduce his people to the accumulated knowledge. Since Pythagoras left Greece, there have been great changes. The best minds, fleeing the Persian yoke, moved to Southern Italy, which was then called Great Greece, and founded the colony cities of Syracuse, Agrigent, Croton there. Here Pythagoras is planning to create his own philosophical school. Pretty quickly, he is gaining great popularity among the residents. The enthusiasm of the population is so great that even girls and women violated the law forbidding them to attend meetings. One of these violators, a girl named Theano, soon becomes the wife of Pythagoras. At this time, social inequality is growing in Croton and other cities of Magna Graecia; the luxury of the sybarites (inhabitants of the city of Sibaris), which has become legendary, side by side with poverty, social oppression intensifies, morality noticeably falls. It is in such an environment that Pythagoras delivers a detailed sermon on moral perfection and knowledge. The inhabitants of Croton unanimously elect the wise old man as the censor of morals, a kind of spiritual father of the city. Pythagoras skillfully uses the knowledge gained in wandering around the world. He combines the best of different religions and beliefs, creates his own system, the defining thesis of which was the belief in the indissoluble interconnection of all things (nature, man, space) and in the equality of all people in the face of eternity and nature. Perfectly mastering the methods of the Egyptian priests, Pythagoras "purified the souls of his listeners, expelled vices from the heart and filled the minds with bright truth." In the Golden Verses, Pythagoras expressed those moral rules, the strict observance of which leads the souls of the lost to perfection. Here are some of them: never do what you do not know, but learn everything you need to know, and then you will lead a quiet life; bear meekly your lot as it is, and grumble not against it; learn to live without luxury. Over time, Pythagoras stops performing in temples and on the streets, and teaches already in his home. The training system was complex, multi-year. Those wishing to join the knowledge must pass a probationary period of three to five years. All this time, students are obliged to remain silent and only listen to the Teacher, without asking any questions. During this period, their patience and modesty were tested. Pythagoras taught medicine, the principles of political activity, astronomy, mathematics, music, ethics, and much more. Outstanding political and statesmen, historians, mathematicians and astronomers came out of his school. It was not only a teacher, but also a researcher. His students also became researchers. Pythagoras developed the theory of music and acoustics, creating the famous "Pythagorean scale" and conducting fundamental experiments on the study of musical tones: he expressed the ratios found in the language of mathematics. In the School of Pythagoras, for the first time, a conjecture was made about the sphericity of the Earth. The idea that the movement of celestial bodies is subject to certain mathematical relationships, the ideas of "harmony of the world" and "music of the spheres", which subsequently led to a revolution in astronomy, first appeared precisely in the School of Pythagoras. The scientist also did a lot in geometry. The famous theorem proved by Pythagoras bears his name. Pythagoras studied mathematical relations quite deeply, thereby laying the foundations of the theory of proportions. He paid special attention to numbers and their properties, seeking to know the meaning and nature of things. Through numbers, he even tried to comprehend such eternal categories of being as justice, death, constancy, man, woman, and so on. The Pythagoreans believed that all bodies consist of the smallest particles - "units of being", which in various combinations correspond to various geometric figures. The number for Pythagoras was both the matter and the form of the universe. The main thesis of the Pythagoreans followed from this idea: "All things are the essence of numbers." But since numbers expressed the "essence" of everything, it was necessary to explain the phenomena of nature only with their help. Pythagoras and his followers with their work laid the foundation for a very important area of mathematics - number theory. The Pythagoreans divided all numbers into two categories - even and odd, which is also characteristic of some other ancient civilizations. Later it turned out that the Pythagorean "even - odd", "right - left" have deep and interesting consequences in quartz crystals, in the structure of viruses and DNA, in Pasteur's famous experiments with the polarization of tartaric acid, in violation of the parity of elementary particles and other theories. The Pythagoreans were not alien to the geometric interpretation of numbers. They believed that a point has one dimension, a line has two, a plane has three, and a volume has four dimensions. Ten can be expressed as the sum of the first four numbers (1+2+3+4=10), where one is the expression of a point, two is a line and a one-dimensional image, three is a plane and a two-dimensional image, four is a pyramid, that is, a three-dimensional image. Why not the four-dimensional universe of Einstein? When summing up all flat geometric figures - points, lines and planes - the Pythagoreans received a perfect, divine six. The Pythagoreans saw justice and equality in the square of the number. Their symbol of constancy was the number nine, since all multiples of nine numbers have the sum of the digits, again nine. The number eight among the Pythagoreans symbolized death, since multiples of eight have a decreasing sum of digits. The Pythagoreans considered even numbers to be feminine and odd numbers to be masculine. An odd number is fertilizing and, if combined with an even number, it will prevail; besides, if we divide the even and the odd into two, then the even, like a woman, leaves an empty space in the gap, between the two parts. Therefore, they believe that one number is characteristic of a woman, and the other of a man. The symbol of marriage among the Pythagoreans consisted of the sum of the male, odd number three and the female, even number two. Marriage is a five equal to three plus two. For the same reason, a right-angled triangle with sides three, four, five was called by them "the figure of the bride." The four numbers that make up the tetrad - one, two, three, four - are directly related to music: they set all known consonant intervals - an octave (1:2), a fifth (2:3) and a fourth (3:4). In other words, a decade embodies not only the geometric-spatial, but also the musical-harmonic fullness of the cosmos. Among the properties of ten, we also note that it includes an equal number of prime and composite numbers, as well as as many even as odd. The sum of the numbers included in the tetrad is equal to ten, which is why the Pythagoreans considered ten to be an ideal number and symbolized the Universe. Since the number ten is ideal, they reasoned, there should be exactly ten planets in the sky. It should be noted that at that time only the Sun, Earth and five planets were known. The famous tetrad, consisting of four numbers, influenced Plato through the Pythagoreans, who attached special importance to the four material elements: earth, air, fire and water. The Pythagoreans also knew perfect and friendly numbers. A perfect number was a number equal to the sum of its divisors. Friendly - numbers, each of which is the sum of its own divisors of another number. In ancient times, numbers of this kind symbolized friendship, hence the name. In addition to the numbers that caused admiration and admiration, the Pythagoreans also had the so-called bad numbers. These are numbers that did not have any merit, and even worse if such a number was surrounded by "good" numbers. An example of this is the famous number thirteen - the devil's dozen or the number seventeen, which caused particular disgust among the Pythagoreans. The attempt of Pythagoras and his school to connect the real world with numerical relations cannot be considered unsuccessful, because in the process of studying nature, the Pythagoreans, along with timid, naive and sometimes fantastic ideas, also put forward rational ways of knowing the secrets of the Universe. The reduction of astronomy and music to numbers enabled later generations of scientists to understand the world even more deeply. After the death of Pythagoras in Metapontus (Southern Italy), where he fled after the end of the uprising in Croton, his students settled in different cities of Magna Graecia and organized Pythagorean societies there. In modern times, especially thanks to the rapid development of natural science, astronomy and mathematics, Pythagoras's ideas about world harmony are gaining new fans. The great Copernicus and Kepler, the famous artist and geometer Durer, the brilliant Leonardo da Vinci, the English astronomer Eddington, who experimentally confirmed the theory of relativity in 1919, and many other scientists and philosophers continue to find in the scientific and philosophical heritage of Pythagoras the necessary basis for establishing the laws of our world. Author: Samin D.K.
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