Citation Needed - 5. Music, Temperament, and Social Concord
From The Observatory
Query: 5. Music, Temperament, and Social Concord
Citation Needed
Quoted text:
Was the number 1 conceived of as unrelated to other numbers, a case of “itself” (a parthenogenic number)?
Was number 2 thought of as a “female number”?
Citation(s) needed.
Some hints about the citation for male/female numbers may be found in Chapter 3 in the section titled Birth Metaphors for the Generation of Fractions and Interest:
Hint 1: “By the same token, numbers beyond 1 and 2 have been imbued with maleness and femaleness by classifying them as odd or even. The Pythagoreans held that ‘odd numbers are male, even numbers are female’ (Aristotle, Metaphysics 986a, quoted in Seidenberg[1] 1962b: p. 2).”
Hint 2: “Robert Stieglitz[2] (1982: p. 257) called this line of reasoning mathopoeic: ‘the poet might say that the “One” gave birth to a “Female” (= 2) and a “Male” (= 3), who in turn mated and thus begot successive generations of “sons” and “daughters” (2p3q5r), formed in the “image” of their prototypes.’”
Hint 3: “Plutarch (Isis and Osiris, Chapter 56) asserted that the ancient Egyptians knew the 3 x 4 x 5 right triangle and the male and female deities associated with it. The upright perpendicular measuring 3 represented Osiris, while the base measuring 4 (an even number, and horizontal, as it is presumed they thought a woman should be) signified Isis. Their offspring was Horus, the hypotenuse 5, a male odd number. Pythagoreans thus built on an old tradition in asserting that “Five is the marriage number.” Plutarch called this triangle the Nuptial Figure.”
Hint 4: “Inasmuch as 4 could be expressed as 22, the number 60 could be rendered as 22 x 3 x 5. In any case, 60 could be generated by multiplying twos and threes and their combinations (‘offspring’).”
Verify, build on, or correct the text as written. Join the research!
