Читать книгу 2,637 Years of Physics from Thales of Miletos to the Modern Era - Sheldon Cohen - Страница 7

was one of Thales pupils who disputed Thale’s thesis. For his time, he realistically proposed his own thesis: he denied that the fundamental building block was anything of form and structure such as the water of Thale’s hypothesis, but rather permeated the world and was infinite and timeless and transformed itself into various forms of matter discernable by our senses. This suggested that the real unifying force was more mysterious than could be visualized and lay currently hidden and undiscovered. This was an intellectual way of saying, “we don’t know enough yet.”

Aniximander’s contribution was to suggest that theories based upon the reality of the world around us, and on our visual senses, were perhaps too primitive in terms of the understanding of the time to suggest any real unifying mechanism. More discoveries were necessary before a solid foundation evolved into factual theories. In the meantime, his suggestion of an infinite and timeless primordial building block was closer to the mark, but again would have a many centuries wait for clarification.