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* * * * * * * * * * This is a Pythagorean Tetractys. It is a mystical symbol that shows how 1+2+3+4=10, which supposedly shows the presenc
by dr_dshiv 4y ago
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This is a Pythagorean Tetractys. It is a mystical symbol that shows how 1+2+3+4=10, which supposedly shows the presence of harmony in pure numbers. Harmony in numbers was believed to manifest in the physical cosmos (eg, Harmony of the Spheres). This Tetractys relates also to musical harmony (which was famously formalized by the Pythagoreans). The top dot shows that, when you press a lyre string in the middle, you produce an octave. The two dots show where you can press a string to produce a musical fifth (3:2), and so on. The presence of zero is represented esoterically in the open string, which has no dot. Whether or not this was actually discussed by the Pythagoreans cannot be known—and clearly the concept of zero was otherwise unknown to the Greeks. But, who knows what might have been: the Pythagoreans were nearly all massacred by their enemies in the 5th century BC.