Hippasus

Hippasus of Metapontum was a Greek philosopher and early follower of Pythagoras. Little is known about his life or his beliefs, but he is sometimes credited with the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers. The discovery of irrational numbers is said to have been shocking to the Pythagoreans, and Hippasus is supposed to have drowned at sea, apparently as a punishment from the gods for divulging this and crediting it to himself instead of Pythagoras, which was the norm in Pythagorean society. The few ancient sources who describe this story, however, either do not mention Hippasus by na…