Thales of Miletus
“Water is the beginning of all things”, this is one of the maxims of the philosopher, mathematician, and scientist Thales of Miletus.
Born in Miletus, a prosperous Greek colony located in Asia Minor, Thales was one of the “Seven Sages of Greece”. Considered by Aristotle as the first philosopher, Thales of Miletus is one of the most important members of the period Pre-Socratic.
School Thales of Miletus
Breaking with the mythological molds of explaining the world, Thales of Miletus focused on the search for rational answers to questions of existence and natural phenomena.
Having as a fundamental principle the careful observation of nature as a basis for explaining the philosophical concerns of the time, Thales of Miletus founded the Ionic School.
The philosophers belonging to this school became known as “ philosophers of nature ”.
The School of Miletus, in turn, was founded after Thales’ trip to Egypt, so that, from that place, the philosopher could bring the science of Geometry to Miletus. Anaximander and Anaximenes were other members of this school.
Although they had different philosophies – while Anaximenes argued that air was the basic substance of existence, Anaximander believed in a vital energy which he called apeiron -, the School of Miletus brought together thinkers from the 6th century BC who believed that matter and life are inseparable.
This theory that brought them together became known as Hylozoism (from the Greek hyle, matter; and Zoe, life).
Thales’ theorem
Theories formulated by Thales of Miletus also contributed to other disciplines, such as Mathematics.
On a trip to Egypt – the same one that would later give rise to the School of Miletus – Thales managed to calculate the height of the Cheops pyramid, based on the shadow it cast.
The experiment gave rise to the Thales’ theorem, which relates corresponding segments of transversal lines to axes of parallel lines. It can also be applied to Triangles.