Thales the Measurer

Thales the Measurer offers a comprehensive and iconoclastic account of Thales of Miletus, considering the full extent of our evidence to build a new picture of his intellectual interests and activity.

Thales is most commonly associated with the claim that ‘everything is water’, but closer examination of the evidence that we have suggests that he could not have said anything of the sort. His real interests, and his real innovations, lay in challenges of quantitative measurement, especially me...