Anaximenes of Miletus facts for kids
Anaximenes (pronounced Ah-NAX-ih-mee-neez) was an important Greek thinker who lived a very long time ago, from about 585 to 525 BC. He was from a city called Miletus and was one of the first philosophers to try and understand the world using natural explanations, not just myths. He was likely a student or friend of another famous philosopher named Anaximander.
Contents
What Anaximenes Believed
Anaximenes, like many thinkers of his time, believed that everything in the world came from one single basic substance. This idea is sometimes called "material monism."
Air as the Main Element
For Anaximenes, the main substance that made up everything was air. He thought that air was always moving and changing. He believed that when air became thinner, it turned into fire. When air became thicker, it could turn into other things.
How Air Transforms
Anaximenes explained that air could change its form through two main processes:
- Rarefaction: This is when air spreads out and becomes thinner. When air gets very thin, it turns into fire.
- Condensation: This is when air gets squished together and becomes thicker.
- When air condenses a little, it becomes wind.
- If it condenses more, it turns into clouds.
- Even more condensation makes it become water.
- If water condenses enough, it becomes earth.
- And if earth condenses even more, it forms stones and other solid things.
Anaximenes thought that the Earth itself was like a flat disc floating on air, similar to how a leaf floats on water. He tried to explain how the world worked using these simple, natural ideas about air, which was a big step for science and philosophy.
Images for kids
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Anaximenes of Miletus as imaginatively depicted in an engraving from the book Illustrium philosophorum et sapientum effigies ab eorum numistatibus extractae (1580), by Girolamo Olgiati.
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A 16th-century engraving of Anaximenes by Dutch engraver and draughtsman Cornelis Cort, created in 1565.
See also
In Spanish: Anaxímenes para niños
