Pythagoras — "The earth is a sphere."
The earth is a sphere.
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More from Pythagoras
"Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thyself."
"Man, know thyself; then thou shalt know the Universe and God."
"As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other."
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About Pythagoras (c. 570-495 BCE)
Greek philosopher and mathematician whose school in Croton combined geometry (the Pythagorean theorem), number-mysticism, and a religious-vegetarian way of life. Closely associated with Thales of Miletus (earlier pre-Socratic and the first philosopher). For an intellectual contrast, see Heraclitus, pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of flux — Heraclitus called Pythagoras 'the chief of swindlers' — among the founding insults of the philosophical-rivalry tradition. Their 'all is flux' vs 'all is number' poles still organize the philosophy of mathematics today (Platonist vs anti-realist).
Details
Pythagoreans were among the first to propose a spherical Earth, though not universally accepted at the time.
Date: c. 570 – c. 495 BC
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Understanding this quote
What it means
The planet we live on is round, shaped like a ball, not flat. Despite how the ground appears level under our feet, the whole Earth curves in every direction, forming a three-dimensional globe. This simple statement asserts a physical truth about our world's geometry that contradicts everyday sensory experience, insisting instead on a deeper reality discoverable through reasoning, observation of shadows, ships disappearing over horizons, and geometric principles.
Relevance to Pythagoras
Pythagoras founded a philosophical brotherhood obsessed with numbers, geometry, and cosmic harmony. He and his followers are credited as among the first Greeks to argue Earth is spherical, likely reasoning from the sphere's mathematical perfection and symmetry. For a mind that saw numeric order behind reality and believed celestial bodies moved in harmonious ratios, a round Earth fit his conviction that the universe obeys elegant geometric laws rather than chaotic flat assumptions.
The era
In the 6th century BCE, most Greeks and neighboring cultures imagined Earth as a flat disc floating on water or surrounded by ocean, following Homeric and Near Eastern traditions. Natural philosophy was just emerging in Ionia, with thinkers like Thales and Anaximander proposing rational explanations for nature. Pythagoras's sphere claim was radical, pre-dating Aristotle's empirical arguments by two centuries and Eratosthenes's measurement by four, marking an early triumph of abstract reasoning over appearance.
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