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The original title: "who is the first mathematician in Western history?" "

"nothing is more active than thought, because it can travel through the whole universe; nothing is more powerful than necessity, because everything needs to obey it."

Mathematics is a really interesting subject, in part because it is a common language in nature. But at the same time, it contains a logical interpretation system that can develop itself without any knowledge gained by observing natural phenomena. Every generation has to use mathematics from the beginning, but how deeply do people use it? Well, no one knows yet.

People may use mathematics to divide the land, measure heights, understand the changes of day and night, build stone piles and, most importantly, count objects. But when did mathematics originate? Can we find the starting point of mathematics? Probably not!

Even so, today we are going to bring you the story of an ancient mathematician. He may be the first mathematician in the ancient West.

Taylor Thales of Miletus was born around 685 BC in the ancient Greek city of Miletus in Ionia, which is now part of Turkey. Little is known about Thales's personal life, but he was a famous public figure of his time because he was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher, mathematician and astronomer.

Thales was also known as one of the seven sages of ancient Greece for his contributions, and these saints were famous for their wisdom at that time. When he was young, he supported his family by doing business for most of his time. At the right time, Thales brought his business to Egypt. This visit was so lucky for him that he was enlightened by science in Egypt.

01. Thales's works and philosophy according to the existing materials, Thales left us two works, one is the Solstice Theory (On the Solstice), the other is the the Spring Equinox Theory (On the Equinox). Unfortunately, these original fragments were not preserved in the end, but we can bring together many thoughts about him collected from Aristotle and other later philosophers. But this makes it difficult for us to evaluate his achievements.

According to Aristotle, Thales's view of the universe can be divided into four basic parts:

Everything comes from water.

Everything depends on water for its existence.

The soul can produce movement.

The world is full of gods.

Marcus Tullius Cicero said of him: "Thales is convinced that water is the origin of all things; God is the mind that shapes and creates all things with water."

Thales's contribution to science and philosophy he made outstanding contributions in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, geography and philosophy, which was a typical way of working for philosophers at that time. The famous philosopher Aristotle also called him "the first philosopher among the Greeks".

In addition, Bertrand Russell also thanked him: "Western philosophers come from Thales."

There is no doubt that he was a pioneer in discovering scientific methods and deductive reasoning and using them to explain everything in the world, which is why he is considered to be the first true mathematician.

Some of his small contributions include:

He used to serve military engineering with great skill, and he diverted the river to open the way for King Cloissos's army.

Using his knowledge of geometry, he developed a technique for measuring the distance between ships at sea and the coast by triangulation.

He explained the earthquake phenomenon with philosophy and reason. According to him, the earth hovers over the water surface, and water waves encounter the earth will lead to earthquakes.

Here are Thales's main contributions.

1-Geometry he influenced the early study of geometry by establishing some logical and geometric truths. He obtains many mathematical theorems and propositions through deductive reasoning. Two of them are still famous today, called Thales Theorem.

He always tries to use his knowledge in a whole new way in practice. He has a deep understanding of geometric figures, especially triangles, not only in theory but also in practice. For example, he uses his understanding of right triangles and similar triangles to determine the height or length of the pyramid.

Thales's theorem

Thales's theorem says:

"if you draw an angle on a semicircle, it must be a right angle."

To put it simply, you want to draw a circle whose center is o and its diameter is AC. Take a point B on the circumference and connect B with An and C. According to Thales's theorem, the angle ABC is a right angle no matter where B is.

Prove Thales Theorem

There are many ways to prove this famous theorem. Among them, the most classic and popular is the following. In order to prove the above statement, the following facts should be borne in mind.

1. The sum of the three interior angles of the triangle is 180 °.

two。 The base angle of the isosceles triangle is equal, and so are the two waists.

Now start to prove that make a segment connected to the OB. Now OA, OB, and OC are equal in length. So triangle OAB and triangle OBC are isosceles. We name the base angles α and β, respectively.

ABC is regarded as a big triangle, so:

α + α + β + β = 180 °

⇒ 2 α + 2 β = 180 °

⇒ α + β = 90 °.

So the angle ABC is a right triangle.

In special cases, the form of Thales's theorem is: "A, B, C are three points on the circumference, and the size of the angle AOC is twice that of the angle ABC."

He left us such an elegant and useful mathematical proof. Right angles are very important in daily life. For example, the fine angles of buildings need to be thoroughly understood.

Basic proportionality theorem

This theorem says: "for two similar triangles, the ratio of any two sides of them is equal."

This theorem has been widely used to understand the properties of similar triangles, that is, the corresponding angles of two triangles are equal and the corresponding edges of two triangles are proportional to each other.

He also found four other geometric inferences:

A circle is divided equally by its diameter.

The angles of two equal sides in a triangle are equal in size.

The diagonals formed by the intersection of two lines are equal.

The bottom edge and the two base angles on the bottom edge can determine a triangle.

2-Astronomy Thales is very interested in astronomical and geographical problems. He answered many questions about the earth, such as how it is combined, its shape, size and so on.

According to Herodotus, he is also responsible for the accurate prediction of the eclipse before the eclipse. In addition, in 585BC, he used the Babylonian lunar and solar orbits to predict the approximate times of the Spring Equinox, the Autumn Equinox, the Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice.

In fact, he gave the logical reasons behind these phenomena, rather than using supernatural assumptions to explain them, which was extremely rare in his time.

The Great Bear and the Little Bear (pictured on the Internet) according to Karimakos, Thales first discovered the Little Bear. In addition, he realized the advantage of navigating through the Little Bear constellation rather than the Big Bear or the Big Dipper. The Greeks used the Big Dipper for travel navigation because it was easier to identify.

There are six stars in the constellation Ursa minor and seven in the constellation Ursa Major. This is why the orbit of the former is relatively small. Because of this fact, he said that Ursa minor tends to change its position in the sky slightly when orbiting the North Pole.

Thales made this proposal to seafarers in the area to help them with their trade voyages. Both constellations are easily recognizable in the northern hemisphere.

He established the pre-Socratic Miletus school of natural philosophy in the 6th century BC. There are outstanding students in his school, such as Anaximand, who has also established his own philosophy, and in some ways he disagrees with Thales (for example, Thales believes that the earth floats on the water. Anaximand believes that the earth is at the center of the universe).

In addition, he influenced many thinkers and philosophers like Pythagoras.

Therefore, in a world full of fallacies and superstitions, he has begun to understand the world with logical reasoning.

The exact time of Thales's death has not been verified. But it is speculated that he died between 547 and 546 BC, when he was about 78 years old. Some say he died of dehydration, others say he died of heatstroke while watching gymnastics at the 58th Ancient Olympic Games (circa 548-545 BC).

Original text link:

Https://www.cantorsparadise.com/to-whom-the-term-mathematician-was-first-attributed-3b180120904e

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ID:cas-iop), author: Areeba Merriam, translator: Nothing, revision: Dannis

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