Abstract
The discovery of the irrationals is one of the most remarkable events in the history of Mathematics, a major triumph of the human mind. It was by no means an isolated event, on the contrary it was embedded in the mathematical development as a whole. In order to appreciate how the Pythagoreans were led to it, through their concern for harmony, in painfully slow and gradual steps, one must reconstruct a great part of the history of mathematics that preceded it; and also, to some extent examine how, through the tremendous impressions that it created, it influenced the mathematics of Plato’s Academy (represented principally by the two great mathematicians of classical antiquity, Theaetetos and Eudoxos).
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Negrepontis, S. (1997). The Pythagoreans: From Harmony to the Irrational. In: Katavolos, A. (eds) Operator Algebras and Applications. NATO ASI Series, vol 495. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5500-7_11
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