Thales of Miletus
Sciences & Discovery • Historical Archive • 🇹🇷 Turkey • 9 views

Thales of Miletus 🇹🇷

Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος (Known as "Father of Western Science")
Pre-Socratic Natural Philosopher, Mathematician, Astronomer
Born c. 624 BCE 🇹🇷 Miletus (Ionia), Turkey
Passed Away c. 548 BCE Miletus, Turkey
Lifespan ~76 years old
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"The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself. Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still."

Archival Overview

Regarded as the first scientist and natural philosopher in Western history, who predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BCE and identified water as the fundamental cosmic principle.

Biographical Record

Thales of Miletus (c. 624–548 BCE) broke decisively with mythological explanations of natural phenomena by proposing natural, mechanistic causes. He is acclaimed as the founder of natural philosophy, geometry in Greece, and the Milesian school of inquiry.

He famously deduced the height of the Egyptian pyramids by measuring their shadows at the hour when a man's shadow equals his height, and formulated Thales's Theorem in circle geometry. Herodotus recorded that he accurately predicted the total solar eclipse of 28 May 585 BCE, which brought an immediate halt to the Battle of Halys.

Key Life Milestones

28 May 585 BCE

Prediction of the Solar Eclipse

Predicted the total eclipse of the sun that halted the war between the Medes and Lydians.

c. 580 BCE

Introduction of Deductive Geometry

Imported geometric principles from Egypt and formulated the foundational deductive theorems of circles.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Sacred Way of Didyma Memorial
Miletus (Aydın), Turkey
GPS: 37.5311, 27.2764
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