Thales of Miletus

Thales of Miletus was a man who was believed to be the first true Greek philosopher. He is also known as the mathematician who introduced the concepts of geometry to the Greeks. The twentieth century philosopher Bertrand Russell goes further and says that Western philosophy begins with Thales.(Russell) He was born sometime between 640 B.C. and 620 B.C. in Miletus, Greece. His father was named Examius and his mother was named Cleobuline. Details of his life are inconsistent and sometimes do not match older accounts. Some details suggest that he married and had a son, or maybe adopted a nephew, while other reports say that he never married. Some scholors believe that he left no record of his work; others believe that he wrote at least two books.Their are a few details about his life that we doknow. Thales grew up near a strategic selling caravan route. He was a successful merchant and founded his own school of philosophy in Miletus, which included teachings in mathematics and astronomy. With his financial success, Thales traveled to Egypt, either to pursue business opportunities or to study Egyptian science and philosophy. He eventually returned to Miletus (possibly around 590 B.C.) and established a school where he taught science, astronomy, mathematics, and other subjects.(Gale)

In his lifetime Thales fame was not only because of his mathematic knowledge, but also because of his personal victories. In his lifetime he became so famous for his innovativeness and unorthodox wisdom that in his later years he began to be praised for making important discoveries whose true origins were not known then. Some of the things he is credited with scholars are still unsure can be credited to him. However their are many achievements he can take credit for. He once he redirected the flow of a river so that an army could cross it. He also came up with a way of measuring the height of the Great pyramids and measuring the distance of ships. He is also widely known to be the first man to correctly predict a solar eclipse. Thales wrote manuals for mariners and became wealthy by using his theories to predict the appearance of large olive crops and then buying up all the olive in the nearby areas.

Professionally Thales was responsible for many theories and discoveries in Ancient greece.Thales was crucial in introducing geometry to his fellow Greek philosopher He was the first Greek philosophers that we know of who did not try to explain the weather and the stars and planets as things controlled by the gods. Instead, Thales thought there were scientific explanations for these kinds of things.(Carr) Almost all of the other Greek philosophers who came after him used his example of trying to understand the existence of the world without using mythology.

Most noted in Thales' life, however, is when he journeyed to Egypt and devised a way to measure the exact height of the Great Pyramids, by using a human shadow and comparing it to the Pyramid's. Another account is when he predicted the solar eclipse on May 28 585 B.C, which has been confirmed by the historian, Herodotus, and modern-day astronomy.(Allen) Thales was the first individual to theorize about static electricity. In dealing with climate and yearly changes, Thales also identified the dates for summer and winter solstice. He counted 365 days in the year and divided it into the four periods that we still use today to determine the seasons. Not all of his theories were correct such as his theories about water. however most of his theories opened the doors to new ideas unheard of at the time.

Because he is considered a innovator in geometry several of his theories are taught in schools today. According to author Patricia O Grady, Five Euclidean theorems have been explicitly attributed to Thales, and the testimony is that Thales successfully applied two theorems to the solution of practical problems.Thales did not formulate proofs in the formal sense. What Thales did was to put forward certain propositions which, it seems, he could have 'proven' by induction: he observed the similar results of his calculations: he showed by repeated experiment that his propositions and theorems were correct, and if none of his calculations resulted in contrary outcomes, he probably felt justified in accepting his results as proof. Thalean 'proof' was often really inductive demonstration.(O'Grady)

Thales made other contributions to mathematics. His theorems became vital part of math that are still used and practiced. He figured out that the diameter of a circle also bisects the circle, angles created by the legs of an isosceles triangle are equal, opposite angles on parallel lines are equal, angles formed by semicircles are right angles, and congruent triangles