Anaxamander
With his discoveries, Anaxamander of Miletus attempted to bring the realm of the unreal to the world where common man could conceive it. As successor and pupil of Thales of Miletus, Anaxamander worked on the fields of geometry, natural science, and astrology. The culmination of his life attempted to define the indefinite or undetermined. He was the first to discover and apply the theory of the unlimited. For a philosopher of this time period, he had many radical ideas. Anaxamander believed many different things about the position of the Earth. He also published a book, On Nature, which revealed his theories about the evolution of Earth and man. Under the tutelage of Thales, Anaxamander studied numerous things about earth and life. While he did make some contributions to the world of mathematics, his greatest achievements were probably in science and astrology. His most notable accomplishment, however, was the gnomon. The gnomon is the large rod that is erected from the base of the sundial. This led him to other things, such as the prediction of solstices and equinoxes. His attempts at pr
In addition to his celestial interests, Anaxamander believed that the Earth hung in the middle of the sky and was held there by the pull of objects at either side. Along this line he also believed that the world possessed a cylindrical form. He believed that the Earth was encompassed by a flame, that was broken into pieces in order to generate the sun, moon, and stars. The heavenly bodies, Anaxamander thought, were each a wheel of fire. When holes in the wheel were clogged then an eclipse occurred. The seas upon the earth were the result of leftover primal moisture. Strong winds came through and dried some places, which are now land; what was left became the seas and oceans. Wheelwright, Philip. The Presocratics. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1966 Anaxamander, unlike most philosophers of this time, assessed that the world was created from air, not water. He assumed that everything was created from nothing. This nothing, however, was actually the unknown. The unknown, as Anaxamander defines it, can best be described as the other half of what is. The undetermined is what is not and cannot
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Approximate Word count = 744
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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