The Mathematics of Beauty > Line

Plato and the Music of the Spheres

* Include pictorial diagrams

Plato, through Timaeus, says that the creator made the world soul out of various ingredients, and formed it into a long strip. The strip was then marked out into intervals.

First [the creator] took one portion from the whole (1 unit)
and next a portion double the first (2 unit)
a third portion half again as much as the second (3 unit)
the fourth portion double the second (4 unit)
the fifth three times the third (9 unit)
the sixth eight times the first (8 unit)
and the seventh 27 tmes the first (27 unit)
They give the seven integers; 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 27. These contain the monad, source of all numbers, the first even and first odd, and their squares and cubes.

Plato's Lambda
Slide 8-72 : Arithmetic Personified as a Woman
Lawlor, Robert. Sacred Geometry. NY: Thames & Hudson, 1982. p. 7.

These seven numbers can be arranged as two progressions

Monad 1 Point

First even and odd 2 3 Line

Squares 4 9 Plane

Cubes 8 27 Solid

This is called Plato's Lambda, because it is shaped like the Greek letter lambda.

Plato, through Timaeus, says that the creator made the world soul out of various ingredients, and formed it into a long strip. The strip was then marked out into intervals.

They give the seven integers; 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 27. These contain the monad, source of all numbers, the first even and first odd, and their squares and cubes.