Anaximenes was a Pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher, who
ranked among the pioneers of the Milesian School, whose
innovative philosophies have made major contributions to
the Milesians’ philosophical inquest into the “arche” or first
principle of the universe, which according to Anaximenes,
was the air. Anaximenes was the first Greek philosopher to
form a clear distinction between planets and stars, and to
provide scientific explanations to account for natural events
such as thunder, lightning, rainbows, earthquakes etc.
Anaximenes was born in 585 BC to Eurystratos in Greek city
of Miletus, located in lonia. Anaximenes was a pupil and
companion of Anaximander, however, some say that he was
also a pupil of Parmenides of Elea. He spent a brief period of
his life under Persian rule, therefore, he was a witness to the
horrors of the lonian rebellion against Greek occupation.
Anaximenes’ devoted his philosophical energies to the
intellectual pursuit of identifying the single source of the
basis of the universe. Anaximenes was confident that indeed
there was a single element that controlled the course of the
universe, and he deemed that element to be air. He proposed
that everything is air at different levels of density, air's
characteristic of infinity and perpetual motion lends it the
ability to produce all things without being produced by
anything.
Anaximenes described the earth as a broad disk, floating on
the circumambient air. He believed that the formation of thesun and stars was also due to the processes of
condensation and rarefaction, and these bodies developed
their flaming characteristics due to the velocity of their
motions. He used a similar explanation for the natural
phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which he
described as a result of wind breaking out of clouds, he
described rainbows as the result of the rays of the sun falling
on clouds, earthquakes result due to the cracking of the
earth when it dries out after being moistened by rain, hail is
caused by frozen rainwater etc.