If you have an interest in Greek ideas and Math, this is a powerpoint for you!

1. GREEK MINDS:
INTELLIGENCE BEFORE
TECHNOLOGY
By: DeMario Durham

2. INFORMATION
• I made this artifact because I really enjoy mathematics as I am a math major
and I have always been interested in Greek mathematicians and
philosophers. I just never really sat down to research them!
• My target audience is anyone interested in the teachings of the Greek.

3. BEFORE THE CLASSICAL
• “Ancient Greece” – the time three hundred centuries before the classical
age
• Between 800 B.C. to 500 B.C.
• A relatively sophisticated period in World History
• During this time was the emergence of city-states
• City-State – Village with a common meeting place, a government with its own
set of laws, and its own army
• Each City state was thought to be protected by a patron God or Goddess
to which the city owed reverence, reverence and sacrifice.
• Although there were similarities between city-states, each one was different
from the next

4. • All of the city-states had economies based on agriculture, not trade,
therefore land was the most valuable resource
• Because the nobles and aristocrats were power hungry, they
monopolized the best farm land and justified it by claiming they
were descendants of the Gods. Poor families had barely any
political rights.
• This tension between the rich and the poor, coupled with the
pressure of population growth caused many men to migrate from
their home city-state and into other less populated areas surround
Greece and the Aegean Sea.
• These new areas became self-governing and self-sufficient city-
states.
• After Ancient Greece came Classical Greece.

6. CLASSICAL GREECE
• Between 480B.C. to 320 B.C
• During this time, Athens and Sparta dominated Greece.
• This period in Greece’s history produced amazing cultural and scientific
accomplishments.
• Athens introduced the world to Democacy and western Governments
replicated it thousands of years later.
• The thinkers of the Classical era have set the foundation for thought even to
today.
• We’ll take a look at several of these thinkers.

7. PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS (570-495
BC)
• Some claim that we owe pure
mathematics to Pythagoras and
that he is the first “true”
mathematician.
• He is still a controversial topic
because of the fact that he never
left any mathematical writings of his
own.

8. PYTHAGORAS
• He established a school at Croton in southern Italy
• Pythagorean thought was mostly centered around math however he also
inflicted his quasi-religious philosophies, strict vegetarian life style, and
communal living on all of his members
• There was tension between the mathematical and scientific members and
the religious and ritualistic members of his school. The tension resulted in
fighting and dispersment of the Pythagoreans.
• He is most known for the Pythagorean theorem.
• Based on the 45, 45, 90 triangle, One of his students, Hippasus, tried to
calculate the value of the square root of 2 and found that it was impossible
to do as a fraction.
• This discovery shattered the Pythagoreans beliefs in that there existed a
number that couldn’t be written as the ratio of two of God’s creations.

9. PYTHAGORAS
• Pythagoreans pretty much worshiped
numbers and considered each number
to have its own meaning.
• 1- Generator of all numbers
• 2 – opinion
• 3 – harmony
• 4 – justice
• 5 – marriage
• 6 – creation
• Etc..
• Odd numbers were females and
even numbers were males
• The holiest number was 10.

10. PYTHAGORAS
• Pythagoras is also accredited with the discovery that intervals
between harmonious musical notes always have whole number
ratios.
• However ratios that aren’t whole numbers give off a dissonant or
uneasy sound.
• Pythagoras became convinced that the whole universe was based
on numbers and that planets moved in correlation to math
equations which were related to musical notes which produced
“Music of the Spheres.”

11. SOCRATES
• Classical Greek philosopher that
laid the fundamentals of
modern Western Philosophy
• He came up with his Socratic
Method which clarified the
concepts of Good and Justice
by breaking down any problem
to a series of questions. Your
answer will come from the
responses to the questions. This
method is still used today!
• Socrates believed that
successful fathers don’t
necessarily produce successful
sons and that moral excellence
was a matter of divine
inheritance and not how one
was raised.

12. SOCRATES
Knowledge
• He believed that wisdom was
parallel to a person’s ignorance.
• Deeds were a product of the level
of intelligence and ignorance.
Virtue
• He believed that a person must
concentrate more on developing
himself than material things.
• He encouraged friendship and loving
one another.
• To act Good and truly be Good from
the inside are two different things
• Virtue relates to the Goodness of the
soul.

14. PLATO
• Plato was not only a philosopher but also an important patron of
math.
• Inspired by Pythagoras he founded his Academy in Athens in 387 BC.
• He stressed math as being a way of understanding reality
• He became known as the “maker of mathematicians”
• He focused more on geometry as he thought that geometry was the
key to unlocking the secrets of the Universe.

15. PLATO
• As a mathematician he’s best
known for identifying 5 regular
symmetrical 3D shapes known as
Platonic Solids. They were the basis
for the entire universe.
• Tetrahedron – represented Fire
• Octahedron – represented Air
• Cube – represented earth
• Icosahedron – represented water
• Dodecahedron – God used it for
arranging the constellations in the
heavens.

16. EUCLID
• Not much is known about the life of Euclid
• Often referred to as the Father of Geometry
• His textbook, The Elements, was a compilation and explanation of all known
math up until his time. He connected all of the ideas into what Is today
known as Euclidean geometry which is still relevant today.

17. EUCLID
• Euclid’s five general axioms:
• Things that are equal to the same
thing are equal to each other
• If equals are added to equals, then
whole sums are equal
• If equals are subtracted from
equals, then the differences are
equal
• Things that coincide with one
another are equal to one another
• The whole of something is greater
than a piece of it

18. SUM IT UP ALREADY!
• The main essesence of this artifact is that Greek ideas have transcended
through millenias.
• These ideas have even survived the wave of technology!! (So far)
• These great minds that came up with or enhanced these ideas were brilliant
without the need of any technology. Their ideas helped create the
technology.
• It amazes me that they figured out so much with so little at their disposal.

19. BIBLIOGRAPHY
• http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/ancient-greece
• http://ancient-greece.org/history/classical.html
• http://www.storyofmathematics.com/greek_pythagoras.html
• http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/People/Socrates/