Pythagoras Biography

Pythagoras was born on 570 B.C. on an island in Samos, Greece. His father was Mnesarchus, a merchant, and his mother was Pythais. He also had two or three brothers, and historians believe he married a woman named Theano. As a child, Pythagoras travelled with his father to various locations. Although not much is known of his childhood, it is known that he had an interest in poetry, philosophy, music, and most importantly, mathematics. Pythagoras was educated in a multitude of places, including Tyre, Samos, and Miletus. Pythagoras studied from a group of intelligent men from Chaldea. Pherecydes of Syros was one of Pythagoras’ earliest teachers who taught the basics of philosophy to him. (Douglass, (2005), p.1) (O’Connor, (2017) p.1; Robertson, (2017) p.1)
Pythagoras’ Mentors
Around the age of 18, he visited Miletus, an ancient Greek city, where he met individuals who influenced and shaped his thinking. Two philosophers that influenced Pythagoras and his mathematical ideas were Thalas, and Anaximander. Thalas, a scholar of mathematics and astronomy, contributed to Pythagoras’ initial interest in mathematics, and told him to travel to Egypt to acquire more knowledge. Anaximander lectured on geometry, and this also triggered an interest of mathematics, and astronomy for Pythagoras. He received more …show more content…
He also invented one of the most important mathematical theories to this day: The Pythagorean Theorem. One of his smaller, but also important, theories was that the sum of the internal angles of a triangle equals two right angles. His Pythagorean Theorem states that the square of the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Pythagoras was able to come up with said theories with the help of other Greek philosophers and mathematicians, such as Thalas, Anaximander, Themistoclea, and more. (Douglass, (2005), p.1) (Mastin, (2010), p.1) (Shuttleworth, (2010),