Word: miletus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Greeks philosophized about the physical nature of stars. Xenophanes, who lived in the 6th century B.C., argued that heavenly bodies were luminous clouds, rather than gods. Anaximander of Miletus described the sky as a sphere surrounded on the outside by wheels of fire; the stars, he thought, were the lights of these fires shining through tubelike breathing holes in the sky. Another citizen of Miletus, Anaximenes, believed the stars were fixed like nails to the vault of the heavens. Aristotle maintained that celestial objects were permanent, immutable and perfect. His notion so influenced Greek thought that when the astronomer Hipparchus...
Electricity has been known to mankind since the 6th century B.C., when Thales of Miletus observed that amber, if rubbed, would attract bits of feathers and other light objects (the Greek word for amber is elektron). Only in modern times, however, have scientists discovered that some kind of electricity exists in most things, and in 1752 Benjamin Franklin demonstrated with his kite that it can be drawn from the sky. But what is electricity? What causes it? Where is it most evident in nature? These questions are much in the air nowadays, and almost every issue of the Royal Society...
| 1 |