TRIANGLEs

HISTORY
 THALES
•
Thales from Milet 640-546 BC

Greek philosopher, mathematician and astronomer.

Thales is known as the founder of Greek philosophy.
After his documents he traveled a lot. E.g. to Egypt were
he was able to calculate the heght of the pyramides
using their shadows. He prooved the teoreme of Thales.
• Thales of Miletus (pronounced /ˈθeɪliːz/; Greek: Θαλῆς, Thalēs; c. 624 BC – c. 546
BC) 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.[1] According to Bertrand Russell, "Western
philosophy begins with Thales."[2] 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".[3][4]
• 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.[5]
  

Geometry

• Thales was known for his innovative use of geometry. His understanding was
theoretical as well as practical. For example, he said:
• Megiston topos: hapanta gar chorei (Μέγιστον τόπος· άπαντα γαρ χωρεί)
• ”Space is the greatest thing, as it contains all things”
• Topos is in Newtonian-style space, since the verb, chorei, has the connotation of
yielding before things, or spreading out to make room for them, which is
Template:Extension (metaphysics). Within this extension, things have a position.
Points, lines, planes and solids related by distances and angles follow from this
presumption.
• Thales understood similar triangles and right triangles, and what is more, used that
knowledge in practical ways. The story is told in DL (loc. cit.) that he measured the
height of the pyramids by their shadows at the moment when his own shadow was
equal to his height. A right triangle with two equal legs is a 45-degree right triangle,
all of which are similar. The length of the pyramid’s shadow measured from the
center of the pyramid at that moment must have been equal to its height.
• This story reveals that he was familiar with the
Egyptian seqt, or seked, defined by Problem 57
of the Rhind papyrus as the ratio of the run to
the rise of a slope, which is currently the
cotangent function of trigonometry. It
characterizes the angle of rise.
• Our cotangents require the same units for run
and rise, but the papyrus uses cubits for rise
and palms for run, resulting in different (but
still characteristic) numbers. Since there were 7
palms in a cubit, the seqt was 7 times the
cotangent.
• Thales' Theorem :

• To use an example often quoted in modern reference works,

suppose the base of a pyramid is 140 cubits and the angle of rise
5.25 seqt. The Egyptians expressed their fractions as the sum of
fractions, but the decimals are sufficient for the example. What
is the rise in cubits? The run is 70 cubits, 490 palms. X, the rise,
is 490 divided by 5.25 or 93 1/3 cubits. These figures sufficed for
the Egyptians and Thales. We would go on to calculate the
cotangent as 70 divided by 93 1/3 to get 3/4 or .75 and looking
that up in a table of cotangents find that the angle of rise is a
few minutes over 53 degrees.
• Whether the ability to use the seqt, which preceded Thales by
about 1000 years, means that he was the first to define
trigonometry is a matter of opinion. More practically Thales
used the same method to measure the distances of ships at
sea, said Eudemus as reported by Proclus (“in Euclidem”).
According to Kirk & Raven (reference cited below), all you
need for this feat is three straight sticks pinned at one end and
knowledge of your altitude. One stick goes vertically into the
ground. A second is made level. With the third you sight the
ship and calculate the seqt from the height of the stick and its
distance from the point of insertion to the line of sight.
• The seqt is a measure of the angle. Knowledge of two angles
(the seqt and a right angle) and an enclosed leg (the altitude)
allows you to determine by similar triangles the second leg,
which is the distance. Thales probably had his own equipment
rigged and recorded his own seqts, but that is only a guess.
• Thales’ Theorem is stated in another article. (Actually there are
two theorems called Theorem of Thales, one having to do with a
triangle inscribed in a circle and having the circle's diameter as one
leg, the other theorem being also called the intercept theorem.) In
addition Eudemus attributed to him the discovery that a circle is
bisected by its diameter, that the base angles of an isosceles
triangle are equal and that vertical angles are equal. It would be
hard to imagine civilization without these theorems.
• It is possible, of course, to question whether Thales really did
discover these principles. On the other hand, it is not possible to
answer such doubts definitively. The sources are all that we have,
even though they sometimes contradict each other.
• (The most we can say is that Thales knew these principles. There is
no evidence for Thales discovering these principles, and, based on
the evidence, we cannot say that Thales discovered these
principles.)
 Interpretations
• In the long sojourn of philosophy on the earth 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
something 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.
• Ever since, interested persons have been asking what that new
something is. Answers fall into (at least) two categories, the theory
and the method. Once an answer has been arrived at, the next
(rightly or
wrongly).
• Russell was only reflecting an established tradition; for example:
Nietzsche, in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, wrote:[23]
• "Greek philosophy seems to begin with an absurd notion, with the
proposition that water is the primal origin and the womb of all things. Is
it really necessary for us to take serious notice of this proposition? It is,
and for three reasons. First, because it tells us something about the
primal origin of all things; second, because it does so in language devoid
of image or fable, and finally, because contained in it, if only
embryonically, is the thought, 'all things are one.'"
• This sort of materialism, however, should not be confused with
deterministic materialism. Thales was only trying to explain the unity
observed in the free play of the qualities. The arrival of uncertainty in the
modern world made possible a return to Thales; for example, John Elof
Boodin writes ("God and Creation"):
• "We cannot read the universe from the past..."
• Boodin defines an "emergent" materialism, in which the objects of sense
emerge uncertainly from the substrate. Thales is the innovator of this
sort of materialism.
 The Rise of Theoretical
Inquiry
• In the West, Thales represents a new kind of inquiring
• In the West, Thales represents a new kind of inquiring
community as well. Edmund Husserl[24] attempts to
capture the new movement as follows. Philosophical
man is a "new cultural configuration" based in stepping
back from "pregiven tradition" and taking up a rational
"inquiry into what is true in itself;" that is, an ideal of
truth. It begins with isolated individuals such as Thales,
but they are supported and cooperated with as time
goes on. Finally the ideal transforms the norms of
society, leaping across national borders
 Classification
• The term "Pre-Socratic" derives ultimately from the philosopher Aristotle,
who distinguished the early philosophers as concerning themselves with
substance.
• Diogenes Laertius on the other hand took a strictly geographic and ethnic
approach. Philosophers were either Ionian or Italian. He used "Ionian" in a
broader sense, including also the Athenian academics, who were not Pre-
Socratics. From a philosophic point of view, any grouping at all would have
been just as effective. There is no basis for an Ionian or Italian unity. Some
scholars, however, concede to Diogenes' scheme as far as referring to an
"Ionian" school. There was no such school in any sense.
• The most popular approach refers to a Milesian school, which is more
justifiable socially and philosophically. They sought for the substance of
phenomena and may have studied with each other. Some ancient writers
qualify them as Milesioi, "of Miletus."
 Influence on others

. Thales had a profound influence on other Greek thinkers and therefore on Western
history. Some believe Anaximander was a pupil of Thales. Early sources report that
one of Anaximander's more famous pupils, Pythagoras, visited Thales as a young
man, and that Thales advised him to travel to Egypt to further his philosophical
and mathematical studies.
• Many philosophers followed Thales' lead in searching for explanations in nature
rather than in the supernatural; others returned to supernatural explanations, but
couched them in the language of philosophy rather than of myth or of religion.
• Looking specifically at Thales' influence during the pre-Socratic era, it is
clear that he stood out as one of the first thinkers who thought more in
the way of logos than mythos. The difference between these two more
profound ways of seeing the world is that mythos is concentrated
around the stories of holy origin, while logos is concentrated around
the argumentation. When the mythical man wants to explain the world
the way he sees it, he explains it based on gods and powers. Mythical
thought does not differentiate between things and persons [citation needed]
and furthermore it does not differentiate between nature and culture [
citation needed]. The way a logos thinker would present a world view is

radically different from the way of the mythical thinker. In its concrete
form, logos is a way of thinking not only about individualism [clarification needed
], but also the abstract [clarification needed]. Furthermore, it focuses on sensible

and continuous argumentation. This lays the foundation of philosophy

and its way of explaining the world in terms of abstract argumentation,
and not in the way of gods and mythical stories [citation needed
 Sources

• Our sources on the Milesian philosophers (Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes)

were either roughly contemporaneous (such as Herodotus) or lived within a few
hundred years of his passing. Moreover, they were writing from a tradition that was
well-known. Most modern dissension comes from trying to interpret what we know, in
particular, distinguishing legend from fact.
• The main secondary source concerning the details of Thales' life and career is
Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of Eminent Philosophers".[25] This is primarily a biographical
work, as the name indicates. Compared to Aristotle, Diogenes is not much of a
philosopher. He is the one who, in the Prologue to that work, is responsible for the
division of the early philosophers into "Ionian" and "Italian", but he places the
Academics in the Ionian school and otherwise evidences considerable disarray and
contradiction, especially in the long section on forerunners of the "Ionian School".
Diogenes quotes two letters attributed to Thales, but Diogenes wrote some eight
centuries after Thales' death and that his sources often contained "unreliable or even
fabricated information",[26] hence the concern for separating fact from legend in
accounts of Thales.
 Most philosophic analyses of the philosophy of Thales come from Aristotle, a professional
philosopher, tutor of Alexander the Great, who wrote 200 years after Thales death. Aristotle,
judging from his surviving books, does not seem to have access to any works by Thales. It was
Aristotle's express goal to present Thales work not because it was significant in itself, but as a
prelude to his own work in natural philosophy.[27] Geoffrey Kirk and John Raven, English compilers
of the fragments of the Pre-Socratics, assert that Aristotle's "judgments are often distorted by his
view of earlier philosophy as a stumbling progress toward the truth that Aristotle himself
revealed in his physical doctrines."[28] There was also an extensive oral tradition. Both the oral
and the written were commonly read or known by all educated men in the region.
Aristotle's philosophy had a distinct stamp: it professed the theory of matter and form, which
modern scholastics have dubbed hylomorphism. Though once very widespread, it was not
generally adopted by rationalist and modern science, as it mainly is useful in metaphysical
analyses, but does not lend itself to the detail that is of interest to modern science. It is not clear
that the theory of matter and form existed as early as Thales, and if it did, whether Thales
espoused it.
 
 
 PYTHAGORAS
• Pythagoras from Samos 540-500 BC

He is the founder of the legendary school of the pythagoreers. He

was a disciple from Pherekydes and was influenced by Axiamander.
We know not much about him, because only few documents are
existing. He leaved his habitat Samos to escape the tyranny of
Polycrates. He fleed to Egypt or Babylon. Then he lived in Greece
and south of Italy. There he etablished his ethical school. After his
dead there were many legends of his life. Pythagoras was the first
important greek philosoph. But the theorem of Phytagoras was
known a long time, bevor his life, in Babylon.
 Hippokrates from Chios
• Greek mathematician and writer of the book
"elements". Preserved is a part about the
calculation of circles and areas.
 Aristarchos from Samos 320-250 BC

• Astronomer and mathematician. He tried as the first man

to calculate the distance from earth to sun and the moon
and to find out their diameter. Based on the fact that the
angle between moon and sun is 90 degrees during half-
moon, he found as an imprecise value for the angle 87°
(precise 89°50'). He calculated without trigonometry for
the distance ES 19 times the distance EM (precise
ES=370*EM) and as diameter of the sun he recieved 6.75
diameters of the earth (precise dS=109*dE).
 Archimedes, 287 to BC

• Archimedes was one of the greatest mathematician and

physician of the antiquity. He wrote difrent books about various
themes of geometry. He was born in Syrakus (Sicilia) as the son
of the astronom Pheideias. He studied in Alexandria and
returned to Syrakus during the 2nd big war. As a physician
Archimedes proved the lever law. He introduced the number of
pi as the proportion cicrcumference to radius the of a circle.
Archimedes shall have made many intresting inventions. E.g.
war machines and water siphons. The war machines were used
to defend Syrakus against the invading Romans. Archimedes
died during the plundering of the Town from the Romans.
 Eratosthenes

• Erathosthenes was born in 276 BC in Kyrene,

Lybia. He was the greatest mathematician of
his time. As the student of Kalimachos he wa
sbusy with mathematics, astronomy and
geography. His map of the stars contained 675
stars. He developped a methode to find prime
numbers. He was the director of the library of
Alexandria. He died in 195 BC in Alexandria
 The calculation of the diameter
of the earth
• Eratosthenes readed that the sun stands
vertical in Syene the 21 of june. But in
Alexandria the sun wasn't vertical at all.

The result of his reflexions contradicted to his

knowledge that the sunrais come paralell to
earth. So Eratosthenes knew that the earth is
a sphere
 Apollonios from Perge,
260 BC
• Apollonios was an important astronomer of Greek
antiquity. He lived in Pergamon after studiing at the
Museion in Alexandria. He wrote down his studys in
his most famous book named "Konika" (cuts). The
books of the "Konika" belong to the most important
of the geometry. As the founder of the cycletheory
Apollonios was very important to understand the
movements of the stars and planets.
Hipparchos from Nikaia 190-125 BC

• The astronomer Hipparchos gave a new importance

to the observation of the things and he fighted
against speculations. In his reflexions he used
mesopotamian works. He introduced the
trigonometry into the astromony and invented new
instruments to observe the stars. He calculated
anomalies in the movement of the sun and proofed
an elliptic orbit of the earth. See theory of epicycle.
 Menelaios from
Alexandria 98 BC
• Roman mathemacician and astronomer. He
wrote the book of "spheres". Theoreme of
Menelaios:

If a line cuts two sides of a triangle ABC in tree

points SQR then the proportion of the
algebraic mass on each side is equal one. That
means: QB/QC * RC/RA * SA/SB = 1
 Heron 20 - 62 BC
• Heron the mathematician from Alexandria.
During the time of Caesar or Nero he worked
as engineer, mathematician and technician.
His book "Mass" contains the theorem of
Heron and methods to calculate the square
root and cube root.
 Ptolemaios Klaudios, 83 to 161 AD

•
Egyptian mathematicianÄ an most important
astronomer of antiquity. As a figther for the sun
system with the sun in its middle he had a big
influence to the astronomy and astrology in the
middle age. Ptolemaios thaugth that the earth is in
the middle of the solar system with all the planets
around it. His reflexions are written down in the
"Almagest". He used the theory of epicycle to proof
his thaughts. He lived maybe in Alexandria.
 Pythagoras
• Pythagoras of Samos (Greek: Ὁ Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, O Pythagoras o
Samios, "Pythagoras the Samian", or simply Ὁ Πυθαγόρας; c. 570-c. 495 BC[1]
) was an Ionian Greek philosopher and founder of the religious movement
called Pythagoreanism. Most of our information about Pythagoras was
written down centuries after he lived, thus very little reliable information is
known about him. He was born on the island of Samos, and may have
travelled widely in his youth, visiting Egypt and other places seeking
knowledge. Around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, a Greek colony in
southern Italy, and there set up a religious sect. His followers pursued the
religious rites and practices developed by Pythagoras, and studied his
philosophical theories. The society took an active role in the politics of
Croton, but this eventually led to their downfall. The Pythagorean meeting-
places were burned, and Pythagoras was forced to flee the city. He is said to
have ended his days in Metapontum.
• Pythagoras made influential contributions to philosophy and religious
teaching in the late 6th century BC. He is often revered as a great
mathematician, mystic and scientist, and he is best known for the
Pythagorean theorem which bears his name. However, because
legend and obfuscation cloud his work even more than with the other
pre-Socratic philosophers, one can say little with confidence about his
teachings, and some have questioned whether he contributed much
to mathematics and natural philosophy. Many of the
accomplishments credited to Pythagoras may actually have been
accomplishments of his colleagues and successors. Whether or not
his disciples believed that everything was related to mathematics and
that numbers were the ultimate reality is unknown. It was said that
he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom,
[2] and Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Plato, and

through him, all of Western philosophy.

 Mathematics

• The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the

first to take up mathematics, not only
advanced this subject, but saturated with it,
they fancied that the principles of
mathematics were the principles of all things.
 Pythagorean theorem

• The Pythagorean theorem: The sum of the areas of the

two squares on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the
square on the hypotenuse (c).
• Since the fourth century AD, Pythagoras has commonly
been given credit for discovering the Pythagorean theorem
, a theorem in geometry that states that in a right-angled
triangle the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite
the right angle), c, is equal to the sum of the squares of the
other two sides, b and a—that is,
• a2 + b2 = c2.
• While the theorem that now bears his name was known and previously
utilized by the Babylonians and Indians, he, or his students, are often
said to have constructed the first proof. It must, however, be stressed
that the way in which the Babylonians handled Pythagorean numbers
implies that they knew that the principle was generally applicable, and
knew some kind of proof, which has not yet been found in the (still
largely unpublished) cuneiform sources.[42] Because of the secretive
nature of his school and the custom of its students to attribute
everything to their teacher, there is no evidence that Pythagoras himself
worked on or proved this theorem. For that matter, there is no evidence
that he worked on any mathematical or meta-mathematical problems.
Some attribute it as a carefully constructed myth by followers of Plato
over two centuries after the death of Pythagoras, mainly to bolster the
case for Platonic meta-physics, which resonate well with the ideas they
attributed to Pythagoras. This attribution has stuck down the centuries
up to modern times.[43] The earliest known mention of Pythagoras's
name in connection with the theorem occurred five centuries after his
death, in the writings of Cicero and Plutarch.
 Musical theories and
investigations
• According to legend, the way Pythagoras discovered that musical notes
could be translated into mathematical equations was when one day he
passed blacksmiths at work, and thought that the sounds emanating from
their anvils being hit were beautiful and harmonious and decided that
whatever scientific law caused this to happen must be mathematical and
could be applied to music. He went to the blacksmiths to learn how this
had happened by looking at their tools, he discovered that it was because
the anvils were "simple ratios of each other, one was half the size of the
first, another was 2/3 the size, and so on."
• The Pythagoreans elaborated on a theory of numbers, the exact meaning
of which is still debated among scholars. Another belief attributed to
Pythagoras was that of the "harmony of the spheres". Thus the planets and
stars moved according to mathematical equations, which corresponded to
musical notes and thus produced a symphony.[44]
 Tetractys
• Pythagoras was also credited with devising the
tetractys, the triangular figure of four rows, which
add up to the perfect number, ten. As a mystical
symbol, it was very important to the worship of the
Pythagoreans, who would swear oaths by it:
• And the inventions were so admirable, and so
divinised by those who understood them, that the
members used them as forms of oath: "By him who
handed to our generation the tetractys, source of the
roots of ever-flowing nature."
 Religion and science

• Pythagoras’ religious and scientific views were, in his

opinion, inseparably interconnected. Religiously, Pythagoras
was a believer of metempsychosis. He believed in
transmigration, or the reincarnation of the soul again and
again into the bodies of humans, animals, or vegetables
until it became immortal. His ideas of reincarnation were
influenced by ancient Greek religion. Heraclides Ponticus
reports the story that Pythagoras claimed that he had lived
four lives that he could remember in detail, [45] and,
according to Xenophanes, Pythagoras heard the cry of his
dead friend in the bark of a dog. [46]
 Lore
• Pythagoras became the subject of elaborate legends surrounding his
historic persona. Aristotle described Pythagoras as a wonder-worker
and somewhat of a supernatural figure, attributing to him such
aspects as a golden thigh, which was a sign of divinity. According to
Aristotle and others' accounts, some ancients believed that he had
the ability to travel through space and time, and to communicate
with animals and plants.[47] An extract from
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable's entry entitled "Golden
Thigh":
• Pythagoras is said to have had a golden thigh, which he showed to
Abaris, the Hyperborean priest, and exhibited in the Olympic games.
[48]

• Another legend describes his writing on the moon: