Thales and the eclipse of 585 BCE

Tradition credits Thales of Miletus with predicting a solar eclipse and with proposing a single natural substrate — water — behind all things.

Why it matters

Whether or not the prediction happened as told, the story marks the moment Greek thinkers began explaining nature through natural causes rather than myth — the start of Western natural philosophy.

People

Thales of Miletus

Related events

• c. 750 BCE – 100 BCE

  Babylonian astronomers systematize the sky

  Late Babylonian scribes kept centuries of systematic records of celestial positions and developed mathematical schemes to predict lunar and planetary phenomena.

  Science · middle east

• c. 530 BCE – 480 BCE

  The Pythagorean program: number as structure

  Pythagoras' school at Croton linked musical harmony to simple ratios and proposed that mathematical relations underlie nature.

  Science · europe

• 470 BCE – 399 BCE

  Socrates questions Athens

  Socrates wrote nothing; he walked and talked, pressing Athenians to define justice, courage and the good — and died for refusing to stop.

  Philosophy · europe

Sources

• Encyclopædia Britannica — Thales of Miletus