What did Thales contribute to the concept of planetary mechanics?
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Thales of Miletus was among the founders of the natural sciences. He was among the first to seek for answers to questions through discovering the order in nature.
He predicted an eclipse of the sun on 28 May of the year 585 BC, according to the Greek historian Herodotus.
He identified the dates for summer and winter solstice. He counted 365 days in the year and divided the year into the four seasons that we still recognize today.
He calculated the diameter of the sun as being 1/720 of the circumference of its orbit (or, rather, Earth's orbit), and this is almost correct. (The relative error is 6.5 percent.)
Thales was an avid sky-gazer. There is a story about him being out for a stroll on a clear night, and being so intent on watching the stars that he fell down a well. His fellow philosophers had a lot of fun telling their students that story during all the subsequent two hundred years.
He predicted an eclipse of the sun on 28 May of the year 585 BC, according to the Greek historian Herodotus.
He identified the dates for summer and winter solstice. He counted 365 days in the year and divided the year into the four seasons that we still recognize today.
He calculated the diameter of the sun as being 1/720 of the circumference of its orbit (or, rather, Earth's orbit), and this is almost correct. (The relative error is 6.5 percent.)
Thales was an avid sky-gazer. There is a story about him being out for a stroll on a clear night, and being so intent on watching the stars that he fell down a well. His fellow philosophers had a lot of fun telling their students that story during all the subsequent two hundred years.
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Sure don't compare to Newton and Kepler.