by John Traveler

Created on: July 22, 2008   Last Updated: July 23, 2008

The year is half over, and thus far it has been a great year for new and interesting books. Having just closed the cover on Kitty Ferguson's "The Music of Pythagoras," I can attest to its worthiness to be at the top of any readers list.

Most people when hearing the name Pythagoras equate it to the Pythagorean theorem they learned about in geometry class, but in The Music of Pythagoras the reader will find whole new concepts of Pythagorean perceptions from an author well equated with the subject matter, and whose own reflections and incites extend to the reader the authors own essence of scholarship.

Who was the most influential person of all time? There are probably a hundred or so names which stand out for consideration in the answer to this question. Most people might say that the honor goes to Jesus the Christ, Mohammad, or perhaps Confucius, but I would assert that the first two of these were likely influenced by another, that being of course Pythagoras. In fact, when you consider the paradigms of our contemporary world, we owe to the Pythagoreans the essence of out intellectual foundations. Yes, we are indebted to the ancient Greeks, and in particular the Pythagorean following, for a lot more than a few mathematical concepts. The roots of many of our words today are descendent from the more ancient Greek words, our institutions of intellectual edifice patterned after Plato's Academy, and the philosophical fabric of both our secular and religious precepts, inexplicably interwoven with threads first stitched by the Pythagoreans 2500 years ago.

And then there is the element of music, which from a Pythagorean perspective is the glue that holds the cosmos together, perhaps even the first humanly perceived notion of gravity and certainly an inspiration to Johannes Kepler's and later Newton's conception of it in the seventeenth century. When it comes to music, Ferguson's own astute cognizance of it defines a melodic theme embellished with congruent harmonies that crescendo in the readers mind, evoking an epiphany of intellectual enlightenment. She delivers with a sense of mathematical precision which would have inspired the Pythagoreans themselves, an authentic portrayal of these ancient enlightened people, their beliefs, and the implications such have on us today.

The only question I was left with about this book, is to which section of the book store I should direct you to find a copy of it. Would you find it under History, Science, Philosophy, Religion, Music, or in some other location? I got my copy off of Amazon .com, so I don't really know the answer to this one, but I can tell you that this book would be equally well positioned under any of these topical classifications.

I began with consideration that the year is half over, but from another perspective that means there is still half a year to go, before next year; and still time for you to add this book to your reading list for this one. I can promise only that it will be an intellectually stimulating exercise for you, but perhaps as was the case for me, it will be a lot more.

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