Considered one of the seven wise men of Greece, and known as the founder of Western philosophy, Thales was the earliest known Greek to have taken a scientific interest in mathematics, and the union of astronomy, geometry and number theory. Somewhat of a "jack-of-all-trades," Thales was a merchant in his early days; and a statesman in mid-life; a mathematician, astronomer and philosopher in his later years. Very little is known of Thales' personal life, and most of what is known comes from the later writings of Proclus (410"-485 a.d..) and Aristotle. Thales was born at Miletus, in Ionia, Greece. In his early days he traveled widely, visiting the trading ports of Egypt, Crete and Asia. A man of great ingenuity and practical knowledge, Thales became offended when his peers ridiculed him, asking him why, if he was so wise, why was he not rich as well. Using his immense knowledge of astronomy to forecast an abundant olive crop, Thales quietly bought up all the olive presses in Miletus. He rented them out at high fees and made a huge profit. Having proved his point to his critics, he sold off the presses and moved on to new activities. In another anecdote preserved by history, Thales reportedly fell into a well while stargazing. He was mocked by a servant girl for trying to see into the heavens when he could not see what was at his feet.
Thales had an intense interest in astronomy, accurately predicting an eclipse which was believed to have occurred May 28, 585 b.c., although others report the occurrence twenty-five years earlier. Some historians have claimed that Thales formulated his prediction using the " Babylonian saros," a calculation based upon a cyclic period in which eclipses of the Sun and Moon repeat themselves with little change. However, others credit the invention of the Babylonian saros to eighteenth-century English astronomer Edmond Halley, and therefore contend that Thales could not have used this means to predict the eclipse.
Thales believed water to be the primary element from which all matter was made; he also theorized that the Earth floated upon water, basing his explanation for earthquakes upon that idea. Although mistaken, Thales presented the first simple, natural explanations for earthly phenomena, rather than crediting the events to supernatural gods and goddesses. Thales is also credited with discovering the attractive power of magnets and static electricity.
However, it is his work in founding deductive geometry and as the founder of a school of learning that Thales is chiefly remembered. Significant among his geometrical findings, he discovered that a circle is bisected by its diameter, that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal, and that pairs of opposite angles formed by two intersecting straight lines are equal. One of his most resourceful ideas was to calculate the heights of pyramids by comparing their shadows with shadows cast by a stick of known height at the same time. The development of his theorem--that two triangles are equal in every respect if they have two angles and one side respectively equal--was supposedly made in a similar fashion by measuring the distance of a ship from shore. Thales was also the first to prove mathematical arguments by proceeding in a step by step manner to obtain the desired proof, a method we now call deductive mathematics.
Thales is believed to have died about 547 b.c., but the Ionian School he founded continued for some time after his death. The school was responsible for the discovery of many important philosophical and scientific findings. Some years later, Thales' student, Pythagoras, became leader of the school, picking up where Thales had left off.
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