HOW WOULD YOU measure the height of the tallest pyramid in Egypt? Get a
big ladder? According to legend, an ancient sage, Thales of Miletus, accomplished the task
without climbing a step. Waiting until a time of day when the length of his own shadow
was equal to half his height, Thales paced off the shadow of the pyramid, then doubled
its length to calculate the pyramid’s height.
Born around 624 bc, Thales (pronounced thay-leez) was one of the seven great sages
of the ancient world. Little is really known about him. He grew up in Miletus, a busy
trading port on the Aegean Sea in what is today Turkey. He probably visited Egypt
(where he would have measured the pyramids). Herodotus, a Greek historian, credits
Thales with ending a war by predicting an eclipse that terrified the battling armies.
When questioned why he wasn’t rich, if he was so wise, Thales is said to have used his
knowledge of weather patterns to predict an end to a long drought that had been ruining
the olive crop. He bought up all the idle olive presses cheaply, then charged what price he
liked when rains brought a bumper crop.
According to Plato and Aristotle, who lived hundreds of years later, Thales taught
that “Everything is water.” Having observed that a quantity of water can transform from
solid ice, to liquid, to steam, Thales may have reasoned that it must yet remain the same
underlying substance, despite these changes. Perhaps, too, the whole world is this underly-
ing substance in different forms—a view not very far from what modern science teaches.
At a time when there was no science, only supernatural explanations and myths, Thales
was the first to dream that maybe human beings could know the world through reason.
There is another well-known ancient legend, that while Thales was pondering the heav-
ens above, he fell down a well. Perhaps that’s what gave him the idea that everything is water!
Thales was the first philosopher, a word that means “lover of wisdom.” Plato cred-
its him with the dictum, “Know thyself.” That is a good bit of philosophy to guide us
through life—and perhaps save us from falling down too many wells.
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