Rosicrucian Beacon Magazine - 2012-09 - AMORC

‘universal ether’. History tells us that Thales drewmaps of the stars, something never done before,but none of these have survived the 2,500 yearssince his death.ElectricityTo Thales water held the potentialities for thenourishment and generation of the entire cosmos.rectangles, angles and circles. As his studies advanced,he found many fundamental truths. Among these arefor example, that if two sides of a triangle are equal, thentheir opposite angles are equal. What we regard today asan elementary geometrical fact was difficult for studentsof many lands over the centuries to understand.The following are also Thales’ geometrical firsts,making him the author of abstract geometry:• He discovered that when two straight linesintersect, the opposite angles are equal.• He found that the sum of the angles of anytriangle equals two right angles, or 180 degrees.• He proved that the sides of similar triangles areproportional.• He appears to have been the first man to inscribea right-angled triangle in a circle.AstronomyAs far as written history is concerned, Thalesseems to be the first man to have recordedobservations covering that phenomenon wecall electricity. He achieved this distinction bynoting that when the material we know as amberwas rubbed vigorously with woollen cloth orfur, it attracted to itself other substances likehair, feathers, straw, paper and so on. The Greekword for amber is elektron, which describes its particularsunny, yellow colour rather than its electronic properties.Our word ‘electricity’ comes from this Greek word, orlater from the Latin equivalent, electrum. Being a man ofwide interests, Thales also knew about the strange forcewe call magnetism. He carefully studied loadstones, thosenaturally occurring rocks high in iron which we knowas magnetite. Sailors in those days believed that if theirship were held together by iron nails and sailed over anunknown bed of loadstones, the natural magnetic forcewould draw all the nails out of the ship’s timbers and theboat would fall apart.If it had not been for others who closely followedThales’ philosophy, we might not have much idea ofwhat he did or thought. Either he neglected to recordhis own thoughts, which seems unlikely, or they havebeen lost since.Philosophy Begins in WonderThales was a practical man as well as a theorist. Hedid things as well as thought about things. Without acomputer, Thales calculated accurately the total eclipseof the sun on 28 May 585 BCE. More than this, hepredicted that eclipse far enough in advance to leaveplenty of time for the prediction to become knowngenerally. The culmination of the event became ofsuch consequence that when it actually happened,it stopped a fierce battle between Ionia’s neighbours,the Lydians and the Medes. Both sides called a haltto their fighting, laid down their arms, and sat downand talked it over!Other amazing astronomically thingsattributed to Thales record him as the first manto divide the Earth’s year into 365 days. He alsobelieved the earth floated in a ‘sea of elemental fluid’.This idea may well have been the initial concept of aIt was time to leave Míletus, the tourist buses had startedto arrive, and my musings were coming to an end. Thosewho believe that Thales inherited his views from Greekor Near-Eastern sources are wrong. Thales was esteemedGeometry: Thales’ Theorem states that an inscribed angle in a semi-circle is a rightangle (90 degrees) leading to other geometrical and mathematical theorems.The Rosicrucian Beacon -- September 201213