"One thing that particularly interested Plato was the mysticism of numbers. In his Republic (Book VIII) he speaks in an obscure fashion of a certain mystic number, but he does not make clear what this number is. He calls it "the lord of better and worse births"... One theory is that 60, or 12,960,000 is the Platonic number. This number played an important part in the mysticism of the Hindus and the Babylonians, and it is possible that Pythagoras found it on the banks of the Euphrates, if he really studied there, and that he took it with him to Crotona, passing it on to his disciples, who, in turn, told it to Plato and his followers. ...More than any other of his predecessors Plato appreciated the scientific possibilities of geometry... By his teaching he laid the foundation of the science, insisting upon accurate definitions, and logical proof. His opposition to the materialists, who saw in geometry only what was immediately useful to the artisan and the mechanic, is made clear by Plutarch..."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
David Eugene Smith, History of Mathematics (1925) Vol. 1.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_mysticism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Mathematics and mysticism
61 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Mathematics and mysticism →
Related Quotes
"Of the perfection of the number six, which it the first of the numbers which is composed of its aliquot parts. These …"
"What English mathematicians were most intrigued by and, at times, embarrassed about was the explanation Ramanujan off…"
"If a 'religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mat…"
"Throughout history philosophers and mystics have sought a compact key to universal wisdom, a finite formula or text w…"
"The Pythagorean mathematical concepts, abstracted from sense impressions of nature, were... projected into nature and…"
"Number mysticism was not original with the Pythagoreans. The number seven, for example, had been singled out for spec…"
"When a man counts one, two, three, he is not only doing mathematics, he is on the path to the mysticism of numbers in…"
"Figuration can be one of the values or qualities that the Divine Artificer uses to decorate or adorn the invisible fi…"
"At Babylon... we see a practical polytheism... combined with the application of the exact sciences, and the gods of h…"
"Now this ratio of the single to the double arises, no doubt, from the ternary number, since one added to two makes th…"