All Topics  
Hippasus

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Hippasus
 
 
  Topics Hippasus Topic Home

Hippasus of Metapontum
Metapontum

Metapontum or Metapontium , was an important city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Taranto, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus ....
 , b. c. 500 B.C. in Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia is the name of the area in Southern Italy and Sicily that was Colonies in antiquity#Greek colonies by Greek settlers in the eighth century BC, who brought with them the lasting imprint of their Hellenic civilization....
, was a Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 philosopher. He was a disciple of Pythagoras
Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
. To Hippasus (or Hippasos) is attributed the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers. More specifically, he is credited with the discovery that the square root of 2
Square root of 2

The square root of 2, also known as Pythagoras' constant,is the positive real number that, when multiplied by itself, gives the number 2 ....
 is irrational
Irrational number

In mathematics, an irrational number is any real number that is not a rational number ? that is, it is a number which cannot be expressed as a fraction m/n, where m and n are integers, with n non-zero....
.

Until Hippasus' discovery, the Pythagoreans preached that all numbers could be expressed as the ratio of integers. Despite the validity of his discovery, the Pythagoreans initially treated it as a kind of religious
Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
 heresy
Heresy

Heresy is an introduced change to some system of belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established canon of that belief....
 and they either exiled or murdered Hippasus.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Hippasus'
Start a new discussion about 'Hippasus'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Hippasus of Metapontum
Metapontum

Metapontum or Metapontium , was an important city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Taranto, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus ....
 , b. c. 500 B.C. in Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia is the name of the area in Southern Italy and Sicily that was Colonies in antiquity#Greek colonies by Greek settlers in the eighth century BC, who brought with them the lasting imprint of their Hellenic civilization....
, was a Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 philosopher. He was a disciple of Pythagoras
Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
. To Hippasus (or Hippasos) is attributed the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers. More specifically, he is credited with the discovery that the square root of 2
Square root of 2

The square root of 2, also known as Pythagoras' constant,is the positive real number that, when multiplied by itself, gives the number 2 ....
 is irrational
Irrational number

In mathematics, an irrational number is any real number that is not a rational number ? that is, it is a number which cannot be expressed as a fraction m/n, where m and n are integers, with n non-zero....
.

Until Hippasus' discovery, the Pythagoreans preached that all numbers could be expressed as the ratio of integers. Despite the validity of his discovery, the Pythagoreans initially treated it as a kind of religious
Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
 heresy
Heresy

Heresy is an introduced change to some system of belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established canon of that belief....
 and they either exiled or murdered Hippasus. Legend has it that the discovery was made at sea and that Hippasus' fellow Pythagoreans threw him overboard.

But there are two other stories about Hippasus. The first says that Hippasus was expelled from the Pythagorean school because he published doctrines of Pythagoras, while the second says that he was drowned at sea for revealing the construction of the dodecahedron
Dodecahedron

A dodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve faces, but usually a regular dodecahedron is meant: a Platonic solid composed of twelve regular pentagonal faces, with three meeting at each vertex....
 in the sphere and claiming it as his own. But since the Pythagoreans' supposed pledge to secrecy was most likely false , the authenticity of these stories is questioned.

He was also noted as an early experimenter in acoustics
Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of sound, ultrasound and infrasound . A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician....
 and resonance
Resonance

In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at maximum amplitude at certain Frequency, known as the system's resonance frequencies ....
. Few of his original works now survive.

See also

  • Incommensurable magnitudes
    Incommensurable magnitudes

    The Greek discovery of incommensurable magnitudes changed the face of mathematics. At its most basic level it shed light on a glaring contradiction within the then current Greek conception of mathematical thought, which eventually resulted in a reformulation of both the methods and practice of mathematics in general....


External links