Pythagoras Bust

Pythagoras belongs to the Greek history of southern Italy. Originally from Samos, he established a community at Croton, in what is now Calabria, during the sixth century BCE. Its members treated conduct, religious belief, and the pursuit of knowledge as connected parts of life.

His name is attached to the theorem about the sides of a right triangle. Establishing what the historical Pythagoras himself proved is much harder than recognizing that familiar formula. Much of the detailed biography comes from writers who lived centuries later, and achievements of the wider Pythagorean tradition were often assigned to its founder.

Ancient testimony also associates him with the movement of the soul between lives. That belief places his teaching in a religious and ethical setting that a modern mathematics classroom usually leaves out. How did that community live, think, and use numbers?