Pythagoreanism facts for kids

Pythagoreanism is a term used for the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were much influenced by mathematics. They thought the world was made of numbers, and that various integers had distinct sacred meanings.

Later resurgence of ideas similar to those held by the early Pythagoreans are collected under the term Neopythagoreanism.

Pythagorean symbols

Monad
Dyad
Triad
Tetrad
Pentad
Decad
Tetractys
Vesica piscis

Images for kids

In Raphael's fresco The School of Athens, Pythagoras is shown writing in a book as a young man presents him with a tablet showing a diagrammatic representation of a lyre above a drawing of the sacred tetractys.
The Plimpton 322 tablet records Pythagorean triples from Babylonian times.
The Archytas curve
Pythagoras and faba beans, French, 1512/1514. Pythagoreans refused to eat beans. Already in antique times there was much speculation about the reason for this custom.
Illustration from 1913 showing Pythagoras teaching a class of women.
Heavily annotated copy of De Sphaera of Sacrobosco.
1619 first edition of Harmonices Mundi, full title Ioannis Keppleri Harmonices mundi libri V (The Harmony of the World), by Johannes Kepler.
Bust of Pythagoras, Musei Capitolini, Rome.
Pythagoreans celebrate sunrise, 1869 painting by Fyodor Bronnikov.
Medieval woodcut by Franchino Gaffurio, depicting Pythagoras and Philolaus conducting musical investigations.
Pythagoras appears in a relief sculpture on one of the archivolts over the right door of the west portal at Chartres Cathedral.
Medieval manuscript of Calcidius's Latin translation of Plato's Timaeus, a Platonic dialogue with overt Pythagorean influences.