An excellent overview of not just the Theorem but the man and his influence on human history for over 2500 years. ( )

Ferguson admits that not much is actually known about Pythagoras she nevertheless pads this scant amount to over 350 pages. ( )

CONTENT

1. Aknowledgements - pag. ix
2. Lifetimes and other Significant Dates - pag. xi

PART I: SIXTH CENTURY B.C.

1. "At the hinge of legend and history" - pag. 3
2. The Long-haired Samian - pag. 10
3. "Entirely different from the institutions of the Greeks" - pag. 19
4. "Among them was a man of immense knowledge" - pag. 33
5. "My true race is of Heaven" - pag. 49
6. "All things known have number" - pag. 62
7. "The Famous Fugure of Pythagoras" - pag. 76

PART II: FIFTH CENTURY B.C. - SEVENTH CENTURY A.D.

1. A Book by Philolaus the Pythagorean - pag. 97
2. Plato's Search for Pythagoras - pag. 115
3. "The ancients, our superiors, who dwelt nearer to the gods, have passed this word on to us" - pag. 129
4. From Aristotle to Euclid - pag. 147
5. The Roman Pythagoras - pag. 163
6. Through Neo-Pythagorean and Ptolemaic Eyes - pag. 181
7. The Wrap-up of Antiquity - pag. 197

PART III: EIGHT - TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES A.D.

1. "Dwarfs on the shoulders of giants: Pythagoras in the Middle Ages" - pag. 215
2. "Wherein Nature shows herself most excellent and complete"- pag. 232
3. "While the morning stars sang toghether: Johannes Kepler - pag. 250
4. Enlightened and Illuminated - pag. 276
5. Janus Face - pag. 297
6. The Labyrinths of Simplicity - pag. 313
7. Epilogue: Music or Silence - pag. 327

Appendix - pag. 329
Notes - pag. 331
Bibliography - pag. 347
index - pag. 355

Pythagoras was born about 570 BC and grew up on the island of Samos...just off the Turkish Coast. He was clearly a remarkable character. Travelled widely in his younger years...to Egypt and apparently to Babylon. (Where it is possible that he picked up a few tips on Geometry). It is known that a thousand years earlier, (1804-1595 BC) the Bablyonians knew the pythagorean theorem; the value of Pi and could calculate square and cube roots. So quite possible that this knowledge survived to be learned by Pythagoras. He apparently spent 12 years there. He returned to Samos and took in some pupils and in 532 BC sailed to Croton near the "heel" of Italy.....Here he built up a following of disciples and contributed significantly to public life. Apparently one of their beliefs was that souls at death pass into other humans or animals..and thus this had implications for what Pythagoras did or did not eat. He was notorious for not eating beans. (Actually, the belief about souls migrating into other people or animals is pretty much also a hindu or buddhist belief). From a discovery about harmonious notes having a mathematical relationship, the Pythagoreans deduced that "all things known have a number". They lasted about 30 years in Croton...when there was an uprising against them and Pythagoras was murdered.... (about 502 BC). His famous theorem (as mentioned above) was certainly not "invented" by him but in and after his own time he was widely attributed with it's discovery and popularisation.
Pythagorean communities existed in and around the heel of Italy after Pythagoras's death and Plato (at the age of 38) went in search of this learning, around the year 390 BC, to the city of Tarentum. A community of Pythagoreans had survived there ....and Plato became acquainted with Archytas who was both an outstanding mathematician and scholar..and also an able civic leader. Apparently they stayed in touch.
About half of the book is devoted to the legacy of Pythagoras....notably the kind of scientific tradition that builds on the idea that...at it's foundations the universe is rational and understandable and can be studied and measured. Some of the Pythagorean ideas were picked up by Plato and popularised by hime and later by Plotinus.
It's worth mentioning that much of the information we have about Pythagoras was written much later by Porphry and Heraclitus (who claimed Pythagoras was a charlatan)...and there is very little direct information about the man. It didn't help that the learnings of his group were secret and pretty much died with him when the group were murdered at Croton.
Kitty Ferguson, the author, is apparently a populariser of science rather than a Pythagorean scholar but seems to have researched this topic extremely well. I am impressed with the book and happy to give it 5 stars. ( )