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Thales of Miletus

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Thales of Miletus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Miletus in Asia Minor, and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. According to Bertrand Russell, "Western philosophy begins with Thales." Thales attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to mythology and was tremendously influential in this respect. Almost all of the other Pre-Socratic philosophers follow him in attempting to provide an explanation of ultimate substance, change, and the existence of the world without reference to mythology. Those philosophers were also influential and eventually Thales' rejection of mythological explanations became an essential idea for the scientific revolution. He was also the first to define general principles and set forth hypotheses, and as a result has been dubbed the "Father of Science". In mathematics, Thales used geometry to solve problems such as calculating the height of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. He is credited with the first use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem. As a result, he has been hailed as the first true mathematician and is the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed. In the long sojourn of philosophy there has existed hardly a philosopher or historian of philosophy who did not mention Thales and try to characterize him in some way. He is generally recognized as having brought something new to human thought. Mathematics, astronomy and medicine already existed. Thales added the theory and the method to these different collections of knowledge to produce a universality, which, as far as writing tells us, was not in tradition before, but resulted in a new field.
Contribution
He reached at solution of problems through geometry for instance the height or distance was calculated by him through geometry. He also used the same scientific method that is method of deduction and reasoning rather than alluding to mythology. Thus he was a pioneer in discovering new scientific method in mathematics that’s why he is regarded as the first true mathematician. Another remarkable achievement of his was deriving the theorem, popularly known as Thales theorem on basis of deductive reasoning. Thales is credited with the following five theorems of geometry: 1. A circle is bisected by its diameter. 2. Angles at the base of any isosceles triangle are equal. 3. If two straight lines intersect, the opposite angles formed are equal. 4. If one triangle has two angles and one side equal to another triangle, the two triangles are equal in all respects. (See Congruence) 5. Any angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle. This is known as Thales' Theorem.

Thales’ method to find the height of the pyramid
To calculate the height of the pyramids of Giza, Thales used the following proposition: two similar triangles with identical angles have their three sides in proportion.

The great pyramid of Giza is made of more than 2.3 million limestone blocks Each of the blocks originally was covered with an outer casing of lustrous white limestone. This layer was later removed and used to build the city of Cairo. After this, the Pyramid's height was reduced by about 30 feet (9.1 meters). Thus the current height is 138 m.
Another real life application Similarity is a concept that is the basis of scale drawing in architecture and engineering, used in building scale models from toy model airplanes to scale models in industry and architecture, and is very useful in measuring the heights of inaccessible objects. This type of measurement is useful for finding the heights of inaccessible buildings and mountains, and even distances in navigation.
Architects use scale drawing to design houses, hotels, and all types of projects. The following floor plan is an example of a simple house design, originally drawn at the scale 1/4" = 1'-0".This drawing is "similar" to the actual floor plan of the house: every 1/4" on the drawing would represent 1 foot in the actual house when it is built. Scale drawings like this are essential in all aspects of architectural design and in the construction business.

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