Thales Academy

Coordinates: 35°53′03.00″N 78°37′47.74″W / 35.8841667°N 78.6299278°W / 35.8841667; -78.6299278

Thales Academy (/ˈθeɪliːz/ THAY-leez; Greek: Θαλῆς (ὁ Μιλήσιος), Thalēs; c. 624 – c. 546 BC) is a network of private community schools located in central North Carolina. The Pre-K-12 college preparatory school is named for the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, often credited as the father of Greek Philosophy. As of mid-2015, there are five campus locations in the Raleigh area. Its mission is to provide an affordable, quality education through the use of Direct Instruction and a Classical curriculum for students in Pre-K through the 12th grade to develop skills needed for success in college and career.

History

Thales Academy, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit school, was established in 2007 by Robert L. Luddy, a North Carolina entrepreneur, educator, philanthropist, and founder and CEO of CaptiveAire Systems. Prior to Thales, Luddy founded Franklin Academy in Wake Forest, one of the state’s largest and best–performing charter schools, and St. Thomas More Academy in Raleigh, an independent Catholic college preparatory school.

Thales

Thales of Miletus (/ˈθeɪliːz/; Greek: Θαλῆς (ὁ Μιλήσιος), Thalēs; c. 624 – c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, mathematician and astronomer from Miletus in Asia Minor, current day Milet in Turkey and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. Aristotle reported Thales' hypothesis that the originating principle of nature and the nature of matter was a single material substance: water.

Thales attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to mythology. 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.

In mathematics, Thales used geometry to calculate the heights of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. He is the first known individual to use deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem. He is the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed.

Thales (painter)

Thales of Sicyon, was an ancient Greek painter who is mentioned with the epithet megalophyes, genius by Diogenes Laertius (i. 38), on the authority of Demetrius Magnes. In the same passage, Diogenes speaks of another Thales, as mentioned in the work of Duris on painting ; and it may be presumed, therefore, that this Thales was a painter; but whether the two were different persons, or the same person differently mentioned by Demetrius and by Duris, cannot be determined.

He is placed by a late Byzantine writer, Theodore Hyrtacenus, on a level with Pheidias and Apelles.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 

Thales (disambiguation)

Thales was a Greek philosopher from Miletus.

Thales may also refer to: