Hippasus

This article is about the Greek philosopher. For the mythological characters called Hippasus, see Hippasus (mythology).

Hippasus of Metapontum (Greek: Ίππασος), ca. 500 B.C. in Magna Graecia, was a Greek philosopher. He was a disciple of Pythagoras. Hippasus (or Hippasos) is attributed with the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers. More specifically, he is credited with the discovery that the square root of 2 is irrational.

Up 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 heresy 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.

He was also noted as an early experimenter in acoustics and resonance. Few of his original works now survive.

References

• Simon Singh (1997) Fermat's Last Theorem, pp.54 ISBN 1-85702-521-0

External links

• Hippasus of Metapontum