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Biography of TheanoName: TheanoBirth Date: c. 546 B.C. Death Date: N/A Place of Birth: N/A Nationality: Greek Gender: Female Occupations: mathematician, physician, physicist Theano Theano (born c. 546 B.C.), the wife of the Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, ran the Pythagorean school in southern Italy in the late sixth century B.C. following her husband's death. She is credited with having written treatises on mathematics, physics, medicine, and child psychology. Her most important work is said to have been an elucidation of the principle of the Golden Mean.Theano's husband, Pythagoras (c. 582--500 B.C.), was inspired one of the most influential sects in the ancient world. Best known for devising the Pythagorean Theorem---which states that the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse---Pythagoras was considered the greatest scientist of antiquity by classical Greek scholars and is considered to have been the first mathematician. However, given that Pythagoras lived seven generations before Plato, most of the information about him comes from …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…this Theano was a Pythagorean woman from Metapontum, a town along the coast of southern Italy not far from Croton.Based on this Theano's surviving writings, it would appear that women were still influential participants in the Pythagorean school in the fourth century. In fact, a literature directed to female readership had evolved by then. Some historians have speculated, however, that the writings attributed to this Theano were actually written by men, using the name of Pythagoras's wife as a pseudonym. Further Reading Alic, Margaret, Hypatia's Heritage: A History of Women in Science from Antiquity to the Late Nineteenth Century, Women's Press, 1986.Gorman, Peter, Pythagoras: A Life, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.Kline, Morris, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford University Press, 1972.Olsen, Kirstin, Chronology of Women's History, Greenwood Press, 1994.Snyder, Jane McIntosh, The Woman and the Lyre: Woman Writers in Classical Greece and Rome, Southern Illinois University Press, 1989. |