Читать книгу The Little Book of Mathematical Principles, Theories & Things - Robert Solomon - Страница 12

The Pythagorean slogan was: All Things Are Numbers.

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The Pythagoreans were a religious, mystical, and scientific sect mainly based in Southern Italy in the 6th century BC.

Their leader, Pythagoras himself, may or may not have existed. Many incredibly important discoveries are credited to the Pythagoreans, of which some will appear in this book.

The Pythagoreans are credited with discovering the following:

• That the Earth is a sphere.

• That the Earth is not the center of the universe.

• That musical harmony depends on the ratio of whole numbers.

No one knows what the Pythagoreans’ slogan, All Things Are Numbers, means.

Does it just mean that all things can be described in terms of numbers?

Or is it something stronger, that the solid world is an illusion and that the reality behind it consists of numbers?

More important, however, than any single discovery is the Pythagoreans’ contribution to mathematics, extending it from a practical subject concerned with areas of land or weights of corn to the study of abstract ideas.