1-157-274 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Pythagoras, Ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher, 6th century BC. Portrait bust. As a philosopher, Pythagoras (c580-c500 BC) promoted the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, the kinship of all living things and various ritual rules of abstinence. As a mathematician, he is associated with discoveries involving the relations of numbers, the theorem which bears his name, and with more fundamental beliefs about the understanding and representation of the world of nature through numbers.