Irrational Drowning

Pythagoras (of right triangle Pythagorean Theorem fame) was the head of a secretive school of scholars called the Pythagoreans.  This group operated under a belief that numerical explanations could be done in terms of whole numbers and their ratios (fractions).  So, imagine their shock when one of their own constructed a proof (by contradiction) that the square root of 2 is irrational!  (Irrational means it is a decimal that never ends and never repeats.  It cannot be expressed as a fraction.)  The group of scholars was so appalled that the unnamed fellow was drowned in the Aegean Sea.  (1)