Pythagoras and the Divine Theory of Numbers
The Greek mathematician’s system of numerals changed the West
Apr 25, 2009
Prior to c. 514 BCE, the system of numbers was used solely for the mundane purposes of bookkeeping. Widespread trading along the Mediterranean coasts resulted in the utilization of numbers to record profit.
Pythagoras developed a system whereby numbers could measure the divine, or, as he was the first to use the word, the kosmos or “world order.”
The Divine Theory of Numbers
According to Pythagoras, numbers as symbols of profit were strictly for merchants and traders. Numbers as the theory of the kosmos were his principle discovery. He wrote:
- Number is the principle;
- Number is the the source;
- Number is the root of all things;
- Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and;
- Number is the cause of gods and demons.
According to Aristotle, Pythagoras defined everything as a creation of numbers but the actual deciphering was more subtle. Numbers were not an investigation of things; numbers were a series of investigations of principles, measurements and proportions. They were universal in order but divine in principle.
he scientific and religious or spiritual dimensions of numbers were united in one theory, not divided into two separate entities. Thus for the first time in the Mediterranean, the study of mathematics was elevated to a higher status than the view of numbers as a strictly utilitarian.
Music of the Spheres
Continuing his theory, Pythagoras noted that if numbers were the principle component in the Universal Order, then music, based on sound, was also rooted in Divine Theory of Numbers. He deduced:
- Music is the source of universal law;
- Music is based on proportional intervals of numbers 1 through 4, and;
- Planetary motion corresponded to musical notes.
The origin of the harmonics of divine rations began as Pythagoras passed a blacksmith shop. The sound of the hammers beating iron on the anvil produced a series of sounds that harmonized, except one. He could hear the octave, the fifth and the fourth and concluded that the sound between the fourth and the fifth was dissonant when taken alone, but it completed the entire sound.
His interest was piqued and he approached the smith to observe how these different sounds were achieved. He discovered It was not from the shape of the iron, its position, on the anvil, the shape of the hammer of the force of its strokes that produced the variations in the range of pitch. Difference sounds were consistently achieved by changing the size of the hammers. He then carefully measure the size, weight and swing of the various hammers, then returned home to experiment.
Pythagoras' conclusion became the standard of harmony, musical and universal. Turning his attention to the eternal, Pythagoras next devised his theory about the music of the spheres, speculating that as the distance from the Sun to the earth was twice that of the Moon, and that of Venus as three times as great, and that of Mercury four times, with the other planets in proportion, then it followed that this universal harmony produced a "fuller and more intense melody that anything affected by mortal sounds.”
Sources:
- The Pythagorean Sourcebook by K.S. Guthrie and David Fideler.
- The Writing of Henry David Thoreau by Henry David Thoreau.
- Magical and Mystical Sites by Elizabeth Pepper and John Wilcock.
