There Was Way More to Pythagoras Than “A Squared Plus B Squared Equals C Squared”
As seen in a previous entry, Pythagoras was not your everyday philosopher. It is unfortunate that the first thing that comes to people’s mind when they think of him – probably the only thing that comes to mind – is the Pythagorean theorem from grade school. There was so much more to the man than “for right angled triangles, side A squared plus side B squared equals side C (hypotenuse) squared“. The real Pythagoras was actually more of an eccentric – or even lunatic – cult leader, who was good at math and got his followers to worship numbers.
However, the theorems and equations competed with Pythagoras’ other weird beliefs. For example, he launched a crusade against beans: he equated eating them to cannibalism and to eating one’s parents. Pythagoras was not just a mathematician: he was a full blown cult leader. Those who followed him were not just people who liked math, but adherents of a full-blown religion that revolved around math. Pythagoras preached that the world was based and built on numbers. He taught his followers that reality and the entire universe were controlled by mathematical harmonies.
