Thales of Miletus Thales of Miletus is considered to be the first philosopher by Aristotle and others. Bertrand Russell identifies Thales as the starting point of Western philosophy. The followers of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, also hailed from Miletus, lonia. They were the founders of the Milesian School (also known as the lonian School) of thought. Thales was the first person to describe natural phenomena without reference to the gods of mythology. Events such as earthquakes were not punishment of the gods for something one did that displeased the gods but rather was due to natural material processes. As might be anticipated in an emerging field, many of the explanations were wrong. The influence of Thales toward the understanding of Nature is not in his explanations, but the fact that he was the first to ask questions about things as they really are and not wondering about the mythical origin of the world! Most of what is known about Thales comes from the writings of Herodotos. Thales was an engineer, astronomer, financier, and politician. He was the first named Sage (wise man) of the Seven Sages of Greece. After a career in politics, Thales turned to the study of natural phenomena and introduced the study of nature to the Greeks. Aristotle wrote that Thales was the founder of natural philosophy. Thales traveled to Egypt, where he learned of geometry.Among his contributions, Thales was the first to prove that a circle was bisected by its diagonal, the first to inscribe a right triangle inside a circle, and recognized that the base angles of an isosceles triangle were equal and that the angles of the vortex of intersecting lines were equal. He measured the height of pyramids by the length of the shadow they cast. Thales introduced geometry to Greece. Thales also visited Babylonia, where he learned about astronomy. According to Burnet (1920, p. 41), the most remarkable statement of Herodotos was that Thales predicted a solar eclipse during the war between the Lydians and the Medes. What is remarkable is that Thales did not know the cause of solar eclipses, and that therefore Thales could not have known exactly where solar eclipses may occur. Astronomers today give May 28, 585 BCE, as the date of the eclipse. Thales was the first to discover the period of one solstice to the next. He discovered the seasons, which he divided into 365 days. He was the first to state that the size of the Sun was 1/720 part of the solar orbit just as the Moon was 1/720 part of the lunar orbit. To appreciate these accomplishments one must go back in time to this period and what was known about the solar system. It was obvious by observation that both the Sun and the Moon orbited about the fixed Earth. Thales wanted to know why things behaved the way they do. Thales was the founder of the philosophy that all of Nature had developed from one source. According to HeraclitusHomericus (540-480 BCE), Thales drew this conclusion from the observation that most things turn into air, slime, and earth. Thales thus proposed that things change from one form to another. Thales observed that water was important in everyday life. Most things were moist. Life needed water for nourishment, and many things lived near water. Thales believed that water was the origin of all things in Nature. To explain earthquakes, he envisioned the earth floating on water. The waves of the water virtually “rocked the boat,” thus causing earthquakes.