Thales_of_Miletus

Thales of Miletus The years that Thales of Miletus was alive are not exactly accurate but he was born between 624-625 B.C. in Miletos city which is today Turkey. He was from a fairly wealthy family, which allowed him to travel around developed worlds like Mesopotamia and Egypt, this is where he gained most of his knowledge for his theories. Ancient sources reveal that he never actually married or had any kids by saying that he didn’t want to worry about children; however later on he adopted his nephew called Cybisthus, this information though is not exactly official. Today, Thales’ basic ideas of the universe rather seems naïve, but without his incorrect hypothesis scientists later in history would have been unable to come up with the idea of what we think is an atom today. He was one of the first philosophers to search for the truth behind the elements of earth and not reasoning with the idea that everything is created by the gods. One his most famous theory was connected to water. He believed that water is the basic element of everything since this is what human beings can’t exist without. He was the one who predicted that 75% of earth is water and believed that earth was floating on top of water. Most of these ideas were proven to be wrong today. Thales also touched on the idea of magnetic attraction where he used lodestone and amber, rubbed them together and the two stones slightly collided. He could not explain this strange bonding and believed that the stones were actually alive and had souls (philosopher like Aristotle was also in a belief of this). Third of his theory was involved with space. He was very interested in astrology and he was able to predict a solar eclipse which was calculated (with modern technology) to have been on 28th May, 585 B.C. He was the first one to think about space and believed that space is the biggest thing which contained everything. He also was interested in geometry and trigonometry, this is why the Thales’ Theorem was born (DE/BC=AE/AC=AD/AB). He also used geometry to calculate the height and distance of objects. Thales by itself based his theories more on his imagination and beliefs than basing them on any scientific research behind it. However his ideas were the bottom layer of later philosopher’s hypothesis such as Anaximander and Pythagoras. He died in his late 70’s in 546 B.C. which was a very rare age to live up to. Bibliography 1.) "Thalesz." Magyar Nagylexikon. 1st. 17. Budapest: Magyar Nagylexikon Rt., 2002. Print. 2.) "Thales, 1st Greek Philosopher." Timeline 1. Web. 24 Mar 2010. .