Person: Anaximander Of Miletus
Anaximander of Miletus was a Greek scholar who first proposed that the sun, moon and planets revolved around the earth. he invented the gnomon of a sun-dial.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- 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.
- None of Anaximander's writings survive but we do know something about his works which were still available to Aristotle and Apollodorus.
- One should not come away with the impression that this makes his ideas plausible in light of modern knowledge, but nevertheless the attempt to bring scientific and mathematical principles into areas which had been largely the domain of mysticism until that time must mean that Anaximander plays an important role in the development of science.
- Anaximander believed that the earth was a cylinder.
- In Anaximander's model the earth is suspended in the middle of the circling heavenly bodies.
- We also know that Anaximander attempted to give an explanation for how the universe came into being.
- Anaximander discussed the origins of life, as well as the origins of the cosmos.
- It appears that Anaximander was the first person to attempt to produce a map of the world.
Born 611 BC, Miletus near Söke, Turkey. Died 546 BC.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Astronomy, Origin Turkey
Mentioned in:
Epochs: 1
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
