It is too much of a stretch to say that without Pythagoras there would be no pianos or guitars. Sooner or later someone would have figured out what he did about strings and vibrations. But Pythagoras’ discoveries laid the foundation for musical theory. Plato remains one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western culture. A century ago, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead observed “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition