 Born: 582? - 500? BC in Samos,
Ionia {y-ohn'-ee-uh}
Died: about 500 BC in Metapontum, Lucania
Short Biography
Pythagoras was a Greek religious
leader and philosopher, who furthered our
knowledge in astronomy, mathematics, and music
theory. He moved to Croton, a city in southern
Italy, where he started a religious and
philosophical school. He had many followers
called the Pythagoreans. The work of Pythagoras
and his followers can not be separated because
the school in which they worked was bound to
secrecy. The most important idea of the
Pythagoreans was their belief that most concepts
could be understood through mathematics.
Pythagoras or his students proved the converse
theorem, though it had been used much earlier in
Egypt.

The schools most important discovery was
that there are irrational numbers - numbers with
decimals that do not terminate, or repeat. The
theorems and ideas of Pythagoras and his
followers are still studied today in geometry.


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