Pythagoras

Pythagoras is one of the few notorious mathematicians in history. In 528, he returned to his homeland of Samos, Italy where he founded a school called the Semicircle. Pythagoras integrated symbols into his teaching that he discovered in Egypt. " He formed a school in the city [of Samos], the 'semicircle' of Pythagoras, which is known by that name even today, in which the Samians hold political meetings. They do this because they think one should discuss questions about goodness, justice and expediency in this place which was founded by the man who made all these subjects his business. Outside the city he made a cave the private site of his own philosophical teaching, spending most of the night and daytime there and doing research into the uses of mathematics..." (7) His group of students or followers were studying mathematics beneath him, but many articles say it is unlike what we would study today. They did not research like students would do in college, there was no problem solving, and were not asked to form or work out any math problems. Pythagoras was more interested in teaching the concept of numbers, triangles, and other mathematical figures. He wanted to find proof of what they consisted of and how to measure it. It was said that Pythagoras thought and saw everything in numbers, and everything in nature could be "reduced to number relations." (8)

Pythagoras gave the number he worked with, as a mathematician, "personalities" such as feminine and masculine for even and odd. He also referred to numbers as attractive or ugly & complete or incomplete. His first discovery was that the first four integers equaled ten ( 1+2+3+4 = 10) and when written out in dot data formed a perfect triangle. From here he discovered his most famous innovation, the Pythagorean Theorem or Pythagora's theorem. Though some say it was thought of many years before, Pythaoras was the first to prove it. His studies previous