2014 FIFA World Cup

The 2014 FIFA World Cup is the 20th FIFA World Cup, a tournament for the men's football world championship, that is currently taking place in Brazil.

It began on 12 June, with a group stage, and is scheduled to conclude on 13 July with the final.[1] It is the second time that Brazil has hosted the competition, the first being in 1950. Brazil was elected unchallenged as host nation in 2007 after the international football federation, FIFA, decreed that the tournament would be staged in South America for the first time since 1978 in Argentina, and the fifth time overall.

The national teams of 31 countries advanced through qualification competitions that began in June 2011 to participate with the host nation Brazil in the final tournament. A total of 64 matches are being played in 12 cities across Brazil in either new or redeveloped stadiums. For the first time at a World Cup finals, match officials are using goal-line technology, as well as vanishing foam for free kicks.

With the host country, all world champion teams since the first World Cup in 1930 – Argentina, England, France, Germany (who won three times as West Germany), Italy, Spain and Uruguay – have qualified for this competition. Spain were the title holders, having defeated the Netherlands 1–0 in the 2010 final to win their first World Cup but they were eliminated after losses in the first two matches at the group stage against Chile and the Netherlands. All seven previous World Cup tournaments staged in the Americas (four in South America and three in North America) were won by South American teams.

WHITE NIGHTS

The White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia is an annual international arts festival during the season of the midnight sun. The White Nights Festival consists of a series of classical ballet, opera and music events and includes performances by Russian dancers, singers, musicians and actors, as well as famous international guest stars. The Scarlet Sails celebration is the culmination of the White Nights season, the largest public event anywhere in Russia with the annual estimated attendance about one million people, most of whom are students from thousands of schools and colleges, both local and international.

Organised by the Saint Petersburg City Administration, the festival begins in May with the "Stars of the White Nights" at Mariinsky Theatre and ends in July. However, some performances connected to the festival take place before and after the official dates.

Numerous night-time cultural festivals, White Night festivals, have been inspired by this, in French they are called Nuit Blanche.

The "Stars of the White Nights" (Музыкальный фестиваль «Звезды белых ночей») is a series of classical ballet, opera and orchestral performances at the Mariinsky Theatre and the Mariinsky Concert Hall, as the essential part of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg. The artistic director of the festival is Valery Gergiev.[1] During the festival, there are daily evening performances at the Mariinsky Theatre (either ballet or opera) and almost daily evening performances at the Mariinsky Concert Hall (either classical concert or opera-in-concert). Usually evening performances start at 7 pm, but sometimes may also start at 6 pm or 8 pm. In addition, sometimes there are morning or daytime performances as well, that can start either at 12 am, or at 2 pm or at 4 pm.

The "Stars of the White Nights" festival was originally started by the first mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, and has been held annually since 1993. Some of the stars who performed here include Plácido Domingo, Olga Borodina, Alfred Brendel, Anna Netrebko, Carlo Maria Giulini, Yuri Temirkanov, Gidon Kremer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alexander Toradze, Deborah Voigt, James Conlon and many other classical performers.

The "Stars of the White Nights Festival" runs from May through July (usually from the 2nd half of May till the 2nd half of July) at the Mariinsky Theatre and the newly built Mariinsky Concert Hall - one of the best-sounding halls in the world. For 2008, expect world-class performances by Valery Gergiev, Christoph Eschenbach, Alfred Brendel, Maxim Vengerov, Maria Guleghina, Bryn Terfel and Thomas Hampson, not to mention the ultimate Mariinsky ballerinas Ulyana Lopatkina and Diana Vishneva.

Tickets to the Festival performances: because of the high demand, usually tickets are sold out several weeks or even months before the performance date. Especially for the ones with Valery Gergiev participation. If you are a traveler to St. Petersburg, it is better to buy tickets in advance - getting tickets on the spot after your arrival to St. Petersburg may become quite expensive.


The Scarlet Sails celebration in St. Petersburg is the most famous public event during the White Nights, known in Russian as "Alye Parusa" festivity. The event is highly popular for spectacular fireworks and a massive show celebrating the end of the school year: "Scarlet Sails" celebration in St. Petersburg

This tradition began here after the end of World War II, when schools united to celebrate the ending of a school year in connection with symbolism of the popular children's book "Scarlet Sails" by Alexander Grin. At that time a boat with scarlet sails was sailing along the English Embankment and the Admiralty Embankment towards the Winter Palace. Although it was designed to update the rusty revolutionary propaganda, the "Scarlet Sails" tradition has become a popular public event, annually celebrating the ending of the school year in June. The "Scarlet sails" appearance is now the most popular part of the White Nights celebration.

The popularity of both the book and the tradition was boosted after the 1961 release of the movie titled "Alye parusa" ("Scarlet sails" in English), starring Anastasiya Vertinskaya and Vasily Lanovoy.

Carnivals of the White Nights
A series of carnivals take place during the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg. The largest and most internationally renowned carnival takes place in the Peterhof suburb of St. Petersburg. There actors dressed in period costumes from the times of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great give performances reproducing some of the historic events of that period. Period carriages are ridden around the Peterhof park as part of the carnival.

Carnivals at the Catherine Palace and in the Pavlovsk suburb of St. Petersburg are renowned for their highly artistic reproduction of the historic events that took place at those palaces. Period carriages are driven around the Catherine park as part of the carnival entertainment.

The Palace Square in St. Petersburg serves as a natural stage for numerous carnival events and appearances showing period costumes of the Tsars and Tsarinas.

Star performances at the Palace Square


Palace Square with the Alexander Column view from the Winter Palace
Every summer in St. Petersburg the Palace Square becomes a stage for international stars of popular music. This wide square has been used for official military parades and massive demonstrations, as well as for political events and large-scale shows and other entertainment. The most recent appearances were those of Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Scorpions & other stars.

Star appearances are usually connected with the White Nights, though some appearances may not coincide with the time of the White Nights Festival because of individual schedules or other reasons (such as the postponement of The Rolling Stones' appearance in 2006 owing to the temporary disability of Keith Richards). In July 2007, they rolled their show in front of the Tsar's Winter Palace before a crowd of 50 thousand Russian fans.

White Nights Festival in the media
Several film festivals take place around the time of the White Nights Festival.

During the entire season of the White Nights the St. Petersburg news media, newspapers and television are focused on the White Nights Festival, showcasing its numerous events.

Ian Somerhalder Foundation

MISSION
The Ian Somerhalder Foundation aims to empower, educate and collaborate with people and projects to positively impact the planet and its creatures.

BACKGROUND
Founded by actor Ian Somerhalder in 2010, the Ian Somerhalder Foundation (IS FOUNDATION) is dedicated to protecting the environment and animals. The IS FOUNDATION is comprised of a group of people who view the environment as an interconnected organism of which we are not separate but a part of. There is no differentiation between all living things: trees, rivers, animals and humans. We are all one interdependent organism.

INITIATIVES
Nature does not behave independently. It works in unison with all its elements. Working independently to transform our planet is like trying to playing a violin with no strings. Communities of businesses, organizations, people and projects must begin to connect resources and skills to passions and projects. The IS Foundation will behave in full collaborative spirit by joining with other non-profit, for-profit and governing bodies globally to:

1. Distribute funds and resources towards global conservation, green energy development/deployment and educational tools.

2. Create awareness that global deforestation can be seen as a national/international and global security risk.

3. Create mobility by engaging and supporting the most powerful, yet disregarded, disrespected and overlooked population on the planet – our youth.

4. End animal cruelty and promote programs such as: “species specific sterilization drugs”; transfer and re-train abandoned animals into assistive and therapy guides.

5. Support and creating sustainable strategies for “no-kill shelters”.

MICHAEL JACKSON

Jackson was born Michael Joseph Jackson in Gary, Indiana on August 29, 1958, and entertained audiences nearly his entire life. His father Joe Jackson had been a guitarist, but was forced to give up his musical ambitions, following his marriage to Katherine (Scruse). Together, they prodded their growing family's musical interests at home. By the early 1960s, the older boys Jackie, Tito and Jermaine had begun performing around the city; by 1964, Michael and Marlon had joined in.

A musical prodigy, Michael's singing and dancing talents were amazingly mature, and he soon became the dominant voice and focus of the Jackson 5. An opening act for such soul groups as the O-Jays and James Brown, it was Gladys Knight (not Diana Ross) who officially brought the group to Berry Gordy's attention, and by 1969, the boys were producing back-to-back chart-busting hits as Motown artists ("I Want You Back," "ABC," "Never Can Say Goodbye," "Got to Be There," etc.). As a product of the 1970s, the boys emerged as one of the most accomplished black pop / soul vocal groups in music history, successfully evolving from a group like The Temptations to a disco phenomenon.

Solo success for Michael was inevitable, and by the 1980s, he had become infinitely more popular than his brotherly group. Record sales consistently orbited, culminating in the biggest-selling album of all time, "Thriller" in 1982. A TV natural, he ventured rather uneasily into films, such as playing the Scarecrow in The Wiz (1978), but had much better luck with elaborate music videos.

In the 1990s, the downside as an 1980s pop phenomenon began to rear itself. Michael grew terribly child-like and introverted by his peerless celebrity. A rather timorous, androgynous figure to begin with, his physical appearance began to change drastically, and his behavior grew alarmingly bizarre, making him a consistent target for scandal-making, despite his numerous charitable acts. Two brief marriages -- one to Elvis Presley's daughter Lisa Marie Presley -- were forged and two children produced by his second wife during that time, but the purposes behind them appeared image-oriented. Despite it all, Jackson's passion and artistry as a singer, dancer, writer and businessman are unparalleled, and it is these prodigious talents that will ultimately prevail over the extremely negative aspects of his seriously troubled adult life.

Maya Angelou

Dr. Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. Hailed as a global renaissance woman, Dr. Angelou is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.

             

Born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.

As a teenager, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school, giving birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation. As a young single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and cook, however her passion for music, dance, performance, and poetry would soon take center stage.

In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom.

In 1960, Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.

During her years abroad, Dr. Angelou read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti. While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity.

Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X's assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Dr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King's assassination, falling on her birthday in 1968, left her devastated.

With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.

A trailblazer in film and television, Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

She continues to appear on television and in films including the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice (1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M.K. Asante.

Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou's reading of her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" was broadcast live around the world.

Dr. Angelou has received over 50 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Dr. Angelou’s words and actions continue to stir our souls, energize our bodies, liberate our minds, and heal our hearts.

College Addmissions

College Admission

In Pakistan after two years of high school students get admitted into college. It's duration is two years.
When a student gives his/her matric exams he/she gets a break for four to five months in which they have to learn about other and new stuff and look for colleges for them, It is the students duty to find for a college according to his academic results and progress and his affordability because some colleges are way to expensive and some families could not afford to get into those colleges.
After the student looks for an appropriate college they have to go to the college and get the form which is not that easy because thousands of people are there to get the forms. If you go on time you will sure get the form. After getting the form the he/she has to fill it properly and submit it with all the required documents and information. The student should make sure that all the information is correct and all the documents are original. After the submission of the form a test is taken from the students which is based on particular subjects which the student has learned in the last two or three years. It is important for the students to clear this test in order to get to next step of the admission. If the student clears the test he/she is called for an interview in which the college observes the behaviour and confidence of the student and if the student has the capability to get into that college. The student should be well dressed and tidy for the interview because it all depends on that interview if the student gets the admission or not. The college announces the result in some time and those who have stood up to the college requirements are called to the college for further information and fee.


Her is the list of the colleges in Karachi, Pakistan


Colleges for girls and boys
Government Degree College Gulshan-e-Iqbal block-7, Gulshan Town
D. J. Science College, Dr. Ziauddin Road, Jamshed Town, Karachi
Government Premier College, Block H, North Nazimabad Town, Karachi
Adajee Government Science College, Jamshed Town (Urdu Medium)
Government Zia-uddin memorial [Z.M] Nabi bagh inter science collage [pre-engineering only], Preedy Street, Saddar Town (Morning)
Government Degree College SRE-lll Majeed Stadium Road, Gulshan Town (English Medium)
Government Degree College Malir Cantt., Malir Cantonment (English Medium)
Government College of Commerce & Economics, Saddar Town (English Medium) (Morning and Evening)
Government Aisha Bikhari College, Saddar Town (Morning and Evening)
Government khushak College for Boys, Shah Faisal Town (Morning and Evening)
Government National College, No. 1. (Morning), Gulshan Town (English Medium)
Government girls College Konkar Village, Gadap Town
Government Boys College Korangi-2½, Korangi Town
Government Boys College Landhi-4, Landhi Town
Government Boys College Surjani Town, Gadap Town
Government country College Musa Colony, Gulberg Town (Morning and Evening)
Government College for Boys Asifabad, SITE Town
Government College for Boys Baldia Town, Baldia Town
Government College for Men Nazimabad, Liaquatabad Town (English Medium)
Government Degree Arts and Commerce College Landhi, Landhi Town (Evening)
Government Degree Boys College Gulzar-E-Hijri, Gulshan Town
Government Degree Boys College Jungle Shah, Kemari Town
Government Degree Boys College sabzi mandi, New Karachi Town
Government Degree Boys College Razzaqabad, Bin Qasim Town
Government Degree girls College Shams Pir, Kemari Town
Government Degree College for Boys North Karachi, New Karachi Town
Government Degree College Gulistan-e- Johar, Gulshan Town
Government Degree College Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulshan Town
Government Degree College Mango Pir, Karachi, Gadap Town
Government Degree College Murrad Memon Goth, Gadap Town
Government Degree College Quaidabad, Bin Qasim Town
Government Degree Commerce College Malir, Malir Town (Evening)
Government Degree Science and Commerce College Landhi, Landhi Town (Morning)
Government Degree Science and Commerce College, Lyari Town
Government Degree Science and Commerce College, Orangi Town
Government Degree Science College Buffer Zone, North Nazimabad Town
Government Degree Science College 7D-2,Anda Mor
Government Degree Science College Liaquatabad, Liaquatabad Town
Government Degree Science College Malir, Malir Town (Morning)
Government Delhi College, Karimabad (English Medium)
Government Islamia Arts and Commerce College, Jamshed Town (Morning and Evening)
Government Islamia Science College, Jamshed Town (English Medium)
Government College of Technology, SITE Karachi
Government Jamia Millia Degree College, Shah Faisal Town (Morning and Evening)
Government Jinnah College, North Nazimabad Town
Government Monotechnic Institute, New Karachi Town
Government Monotechnic Institute, Orangi Town
.*Dayaram Jethamal Sindh Government Science College (D.J. Science College), Saddar Town (English Medium)

Government National College, No. 2. (Evening), Gulshan Town
Government PECHS Education Foundation Science College, Jamshed Town
Government Polytechnic Institute Lyari Karachi, North Nazimabad
Government Sirajudallah College, Liaquatabad Town (Morning and Evening)
Government Superior Science College, Shah Faisal Town (Morning and Evening)
Haji Abdullah Haroon Government College, Lyari Town (Morning and Evening)
Liaquat Government College Malir, Malir Town (Evening)
MDH College for Boys
Pakistan Shipowners' College, North Nazimabad
Pakistan Swedish Institute of Technology Karachi, Quaidabad
Pakistan Siwtzerland Training Center, Karachi (PCSIR)
Premier Government College, North Nazimabad Town (Morning and Evening)
Quaid-e-Millat Government College, Liaquatabad Town (Evening)
S.M. Government Arts and Commerce College, Saddar Town (Morning and Evening)
S.M. Government Science College, Saddar Town
Zam Zama Grammar School and College, Gizri, Clifton Cantonment
Colleges for girls[edit]
Al-Beroni Intermediate College, Ahsanabad
sir syed government collage for women, Nazimabad
Abdullah Government College for Women, Iqbal Town
APWA Government College for Women, Gulberg Town
Arabic Girls College for Islamic Studies, New Karachi Town
City College for Women, Clifton, Saddar Town
DHA Degree College For Women, Defence Housing Authority
Federal Government Girls College, Karachi Cantonment
Government College for Women F.B. Area, Gulberg Town
Government College for Women Korangi-4, Korangi Town
Government College for Women Korangi–6, Korangi Town
Government College for Women Nazimabad, Liaquatabad Town
Government College for Women New Karachi, New Karachi Town
Government College for Women North Karachi, New Karachi Town
Government College for Women Saudabad, Malir Town
Government College for Women Shahrah-e-Liaquat, Saddar Town
Government College of Commerce and Economics, Saddar Town (Morning)
Government Degree Girls College Ibrahim Hydri, Korangi Town
Government Degree Girls College Sector 11½, Orangi Town
Government Degree College Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulshan Town
Government Degree College Malir Cantt., Malir Cantonment
Government Degree College Stadium Road, Gulshan Town
Government Degree Girls College Lines Area, Jamshed Town
Government Degree Girls College Metrovile, S.I.T.E. Town
Government Girls College Al-Noor, Gulberg Town
Government Girls College Baldia Town, Baldia Town
Government Girls College Gizri, Saddar Town
Government Girls College Gulistan-e-Johar, Gulshan Town
Government Girls College Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulshan Town
Government Girls College Industrial Area Landhi, Landhi Town
Government Girls College Korangi, Korangi Town
Government Girls College Landhi 3½, Landhi Town
Government Girls College Liaquatabad, Liaquatabad Town
Government Girls College Lyari, Lyari Town
Government Girls College Mahmudabad, Jamshed Town
Government Girls College eastKarachi, New Karachi Town
Government Girls College landhi, North Nazimabad Town
Government Girls College Orangi Town, Orangi Town
Government Girls College P.I.B. Colony, Gulshan Town
Government Girls Commerce and Arts College Malir, Malir Town
Government Girls Science and Commerce College, North Nazimabad Town
Government Girls Science College, Shah Faisal Town
Government Islamia College for Women, Jamshed Town
Government Karachi College for Women, Saddar Town
Government PECHS College for Women, Jamshed Town
Government SMB Fatima Jinnah Girls College, Saddar Town
Hayat-ul-Islam Girls Degree College, Gulshan Town
H.I. Osmania Government College for Women, Liaquatabad Town
HRH Agha Khan Government Girls College, Gulshan Town
Ideal Institute of Business and Technology
Khatoon-e-Pakistan Government College for Women, Gulshan Town
Khurshid Government College for Women, Shah Faisal Town
Liaquat Government College for Girls Malir, Malir Town (Morning)
Metropolis College for Girls, Gulberg Town
Nishter Government Girls College, New Karachi Town
Pakistan Polytechnic Center
Premier Government College for Girls, North Nazimabad Town
Model College for Girls Karachi, North Nazimabad Town
Rana Liaquat Ali Khan Government College of Home Economics, Gulshan Town
Raunaq-e-Islam Government College for Women, Lyari Town
Riaz Government Girls College, Liaquatabad Town
Shaheed-e-Millat Government Degree Girls, Gulshan Town
Sir Syed Government Girls College, Liaquatabad Town
St. Lawrence Government Girls College, Jamshed Town
Khatoon-e-Pakistan Government Degree College, [Stadium Road]
Arabic Girls College For Islamic Studies كلية البنات العربية للدراسات الاسلامية, New Karachi Town
Org Academy
Hudda Butt College
Big Ear University
Imran Khan Govt. College in Gilgit



Institute Of Montessori Education, C87, Block 2, Clifton[1]
Aga Khan Higher Secondary School, Karimabad
Aligarh Institute of Technology, Gulshan Town
Bahria college Karachi (also known as Bahria College N.O.R.E. 1)
Bahria College Karsaz Karachi, Habib Ibrahim Rahmatullah Road, Karsaz
Baqai Medical University
College of Accounting and Management Sciences, Clifton, Saddar Town [1]
Defence Authority Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed College, Khayaban-e-Rahat, Defence Housing Authority
Dehli Science and Commerce College (PVT), Karimabad, Karachi
Dow Medical College
dewa college gulshan iqbal information technology and science
Guards Public College, adjacent to Pakistan Coast Guard headquarters, Kiyani Shaheed Road, Saddar
Hamdard College of Science and Commerce, Madinat-al-Hikmah
Institute of Business Education, PECHS
Karachi Medical and Dental College
Liaquat College of Medicine and Dentistry [2]
Meritorious Science College, PECHS [3]
New Century College, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulshan Town
Pakistan Navy Engineering College (PNEC)
Pakistan Steel Cadet College, Steel Town, Bin Qasim Town
Pak Swiss Training Center, Karachi (PCSIR)
St. Joseph's College (Pakistan)
Sindh Medical College
Sindh Muslim Law College, Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed Road
St. Patrick's Science College, Saddar Town
Crescent Bahria Cadet College, Gulistan e Jauhar Block 8
Crescent Bahria Cadet College, Gulshan e Rafi, Malir City
CAA Model College, at CAA Model School 1, Airport
NCR-CET P.E.C.H.S
Government Institute of Commercial & Business Education Azizabad
Pakistan Educational Foundation College, PECHS Block 6 www.pefc.edu.pk
Commecs College Karachi ST-9,Block 13,Gulistan-e-Jauhar Karachi 021-34615357-59 www.cet.edu.pk
science college
PeChS education Foundation Govt Science College (Jamshed Town)
Colleges administrated by the Pakistan military
Federal Government Colleges
Federal Government College, Daud Pota Road, Karachi Cantonment
Federal Government Inter Girls College, Askari Road, Karachi Cantonment
Pakistan Army
Army Public College, shah faisal town
Army Public College, Malir Cantt.
Army Public College, Saddar
Pakistan Air Force
Fazaia Degree College, Faisal Cantonment
Fazaia Inter College, Korangi Creek, Korangi Cantonment
Fazaia Inter College, Malir Cantonment
saleem nawaz fazaia college masroor karachi (pAF base masroor)

Pakistan Navy
Bahria College Karsaz Karachi (BCKK), Habib Rahmathullah Road, F7
Bahria College Karachi (also known as Bahria College NORE 1)
Bahria Foundation College, Dr. Sulaiman Ali Shah Road, North Nazimabad
Bahria Foundation College, Abul Hasan Ispahani Road, Gulshan-e-Iqbal

PYTHAGORAS A LEGEND...

Pythagorus of Samian was an Ionion Greek Philosopher,Mathematician and founder of religious movement called Pythagoreanism. The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Pythagoras must have been one of the world’s greatest persons, but he wrote nothing, and it is hard to say how much of the doctrine we know as Pythagorean is due to the founder of the society and how much is later development. It is also hard to say how much of what we are told about the life of Pythagoras is trustworthy; for a mass of legend gathered around his name at an early date. Sometimes he is represented as a man of science, and sometimes as a preacher of mystic doctrines, and we might be tempted to regard one or other of those characters as alone historical. The truth is that there is no need to reject either of the traditional views. The union of mathematical genius and mysticism is common enough. Originally from Samos, Pythagoras founded at Kroton (in southern Italy) a society which was at once a religious community and a scientific school. Such a body was bound to excite jealousy and mistrust, and we hear of many struggles. Pythagoras himself had to flee from Kroton to Metapontion, where he died.

It is stated that he was a disciple of Anaximander, his astronomy was the natural development of Anaximander’s. Also, the way in which the Pythagorean geometry developed also bears witness to its descent from that of Miletos. The great problem at this date was the duplication of the square, a problem which gave rise to the theorem of the square on the hypotenuse, commonly known still as the Pythagorean proposition (Euclid, I. 47). If we were right in assuming that Thales worked with the old 3:4:5 triangle, the connection is obvious.

Pythagoras argued that there are three kinds of men, just as there are three classes of strangers who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest consists of those who come to buy and sell, and next above them are those who come to compete. Best of all are those who simply come to look on. Men may be classified accordingly as lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain. That seems to imply the doctrine of the tripartite soul, which is also attributed to the early Pythagoreans on good authority, though it is common now to ascribe it to Plato. There are, however, clear references to it before his time, and it agrees much better with the general outlook of the Pythagoreans. The comparison of human life to a gathering like the Games was often repeated in later days. Pythagoras also taught the doctrine of Rebirth or transmigration, which we may have learned from the contemporary Orphics. Xenophanes made fun of him for pretending to recognize the voice of a departed friend in the howls of a beaten dog. Empedocles seems to be referring to him when he speaks of a man who could remember what happened ten or twenty generations before. It was on this that the doctrine of Recollection, which plays so great a part in Plato, was based. The things we perceive with the senses, Plato argues, remind us of things we knew when the soul was out of the body and could perceive reality directly.

There is more difficulty about the cosmology of Pythagoras. Hardly any school ever professed such reverence for its founder’s authority as the Pythagoreans. ‘The Master said so’ was their watchword. On the other hand, few schools have shown so much capacity for progress and for adapting themselves to new conditions. Pythagoras started from the cosmical system of Anaximenes. Aristotle tells us that the Pythagoreans represented the world as inhaling ‘air’ form the boundless mass outside it, and this ‘air’ is identified with ‘the unlimited’. When, however, we come to the process by which things are developed out of the ‘unlimited’, we observe a great change. We hear nothing more of ‘separating out’ or even of rarefaction and condensation. Instead of that we have the theory that what gives form to the Unlimited is the Limit. That is the great contribution of Pythagoras to philosophy, and we must try to understand it. Now the function of the Limit is usually illustrated from the arts of music and medicine, and we have seen how important these two arts were for Pythagoreans, so it is natural to infer that the key to its meaning is to be found in them.

It may be taken as certain that Pythagoras himself discovered the numerical ratios which determine the concordant intervals of the musical scale. Similar to musical intervals, in medicine there are opposites, such as the hot and the cold, the wet and the dry, and it is the business of the physician to produce a proper ‘blend’ of these in the human body. In a well-known passage of Plato’s Phaedo (86 b) we are told by Simmias that the Pythagoreans held the body to be strung like an instrument to a certain pitch, hot and cold, wet and dry taking the place of high and low in music. Musical tuning and health are alike means arising from the application of Limit to the Unlimited. It was natural for Pythagoras to look for something of the same kind in the world at large. Briefly stated, the doctrine of Pythagoras was that all things are numbers. In certain fundamental cases, the early Pythagoreans represented numbers and explained their properties by means of dots arranged in certain ‘figures’ or patterns.