Definition:Pythagoreans

Definition
The Pythagoreans were a semi-mystical cult which dated from around $550$ B.C.E., founded by.

Can claim to be the world's first university.

It is feasible to suggest that their initial work in the field of geometry may have formed the basis of at least the first two books of.

Attendees of the school were divided into two classes:


 * the Probationers (or listeners)


 * the Pythagoreans.

A student was a listener for $3$ years, after which he was allowed to be initiated into the class of Pythagoreans, who were allowed to learn what was considered to be the deeper secrets.

Pythagoreans were a closely-knit brotherhood, who held all their worldly goods in common, and were bound by oath never to reveal the secrets of the Founder.

There exists a legend that one of the Pythagoreans was thrown overboard to drown after having revealed the existence of the regular dodecahedron.

For some considerable time they dominated the political life of, where they were based, but in $501$ B.C.E. there was a popular revolt in which a number of the leaders of the school were murdered.

himself was murdered soon after.

Some sources state that the reasons for this were based on the fact that their puritanical philosophy was at odds with the contemporary way of thinking. Others suggest that there was a reaction against their autocratic rule.

Whatever the truth of the matter, between $501$ and about $460$ B.C.E. the political influence of the cult was destroyed.

Its survivors scattered, many of them fleeing to in, where they continued to exist more as a philosophical and mathematical society for another couple of centuries, secretive and ascetic to the end, publishing nothing, ascribing all their discoveries to the Master,  himself.

Notable Quotes

 * Number rules the universe.
 * -- Quoted in : They Say: What Say They? : Let Them Say


 * Everything is Number.
 * -- Quoted in:
 * : Chapter $\text {A}.2$: Pythagoras (ca. B.C.)
 * : Chapter $1$: Some Preliminary Considerations: $1.3$ Early Number Theory

Critical View

 * The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but, saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things.
 * -- in Metaphysics (Book $\text I$, Chapter $5$, ca. $300$ B.C.E.)

Also see

 * Definition:Mathematici