Anaximander

anaximander

Little is known about the life of Anaximander of Miletus but we do know a little through the writings of Aristotle, Apollodorus, and Diogenes Laertius and others. We should emphasise that Apollodorus, although writing in the second century BC, was still 500 years later than Anaximander while Diogenes wrote almost 500 years after Apollodorus. Possible details of Anaximander from these sources suggest that he was the son of Praxiades and a pupil of Thales. One ancient text states that Thales was related to Anaximander - possibly his uncle. He may have succeeded Thales as head of his School of Philosophy in Miletus (as reported by Diogenes). He is reported to have travelled widely, and founded a colony called Apollonia on the coast of the Black Sea

Anaximander believed that the earth was a cylinder. If this seems a little strange, then we believe that his reasoning was that if one looked around one saw a circle, then he used a symmetry argument to argue that there was another circle with a cylinder between. He appears to have been the first person to argue that the sun, moon, planets and stars revolved around the earth so the sun which rose in the morning was the same sun that had disappeared on the evening of the preceding day. He saw each heavenly body as being a hole in an opaque circular wheel containing fire and encircling the earth. He also argued that the heavenly bodies were at different distances from the earth, but he was entirely wrong in believing that the stars were closer than any of the other heavenly bodies. He did, however, attempt to give the dimensions of the universe. The radius of the stars circles was 9 times the radius of the circle on top of the cylindrical earth, the radius of the moons circle was 18 times that of the earth, and the ratio of the sun's to the radius of the earth was 27. For more details see

Anaximander discussed the origins of life, as well as the origins of the cosmos. He argued that the young earth was covered in seas, some of which began to dry out due to the heat of the sun. Life began in the mud of the seas as they dried out. The first animals had skin covered with spines but after they began to live on dry land, the heat of the sun gradually caused the animals to have fewer spines. He argued that man was not suited to live in this early world, so could only have arisen from the animals living on dry land after conditions became suitable. One would have to say that this is a remarkable achievement, again attempting to apply scientific and logical reasoning in an area where only mystical theories existed.