Like his fellow thinkers from Miletus (Anaximander and Anaximenes), Thales was interested in natural philosophy. Aristotle considered Thales to be the first philosopher in the Greek tradition and consequently of the western canon. The Milesian was additionally included amongst the seven sages of Greece.
Thales came up with a system where water was the origin of all matter. In addition, he famously predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BCE and introduced geometry from Egypt to Greece, as well as other inventions. Thales calculated the height of Egypt’s pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore using geometry. He is also attributed with developing the ‘Thales Theorem.’<