This web site is about famous mathematicians that have contributed to the study of geometry. We will tell you about Thales of Miletus, Pythagorus of Samos, and Plato.
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Thales was the first known philosopher and scientist. But, the
only problem is that none of his writing has survived it is hard to tell the facts
from the myths. He was known also as a military advisor and an engineer, and a man of
affairs as well. It is said that he predicted an eclipse of the sun in 585 B.C.
He made a statement saying that the Earth floats on water, all things come to be from water,
and all things somehow consist of water. Thales is traditionally concidered the teacher of
Anaximander and the first figure in the Milesian school of pre-Socratic philosophy.
Pythagoras was a greek philosopher who was responsable for important
developments in the history of mathematics, the theory of music, and astronomy. He was a reliiigious leader too.
He migrated to Croton and founded a religious and philosophical school there and it
had many followers. Pythagoras believed that all relations could be reduced to number relations.
Pythagoreans noticed that vibrating strings produce harmonious tones
when the ratios of the lrngths of the strings are whole numbers, and that the ratios
could be extended to other insturments. They knew, as did the Egyptains before them, that
any triangle whose sides were in the ratio 3:4:5 was a right-angle triangle. But, the one
thing that made Pythagoras famous was the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is
equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
Plato was an Athenian who traveled to many different places for many years. When he went to Italy and Sicily he became friends with Dionysus. After he went back to Athens he founded the Academy wich was an institution to do research on philosophy and the sciences.