14 Facts About Anaxagoras

1.

Anaxagoras gave a number of novel scientific accounts of natural phenomena, including the notion of panspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere.

FactSnippet No. 558,492
2.

Anaxagoras deduced a correct explanation for eclipses and described the Sun as a fiery mass larger than the Peloponnese, as well as attempting to explain rainbows and meteors.

FactSnippet No. 558,493
3.

Anaxagoras introduced the concept of Nous as an ordering force, which moved and separated out the original mixture, which was homogeneous, or nearly so.

FactSnippet No. 558,494
4.

Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry from Ionia to Athens.

FactSnippet No. 558,495
5.

Plutarch says "Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall down to earth".

FactSnippet No. 558,496
6.

Anaxagoras was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the Sun is a mass of red-hot metal, that the Moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones.

FactSnippet No. 558,497
7.

Anaxagoras thought the Earth was flat and floated supported by 'strong' air under it and disturbances in this air sometimes caused earthquakes.

FactSnippet No. 558,498
8.

Anaxagoras introduced the notion of panspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere.

FactSnippet No. 558,499
9.

Anaxagoras attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows, and the Sun, which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the Peloponnese; Anaxagoras said that the Moon had mountains and believed that it was inhabited.

FactSnippet No. 558,500
10.

Anaxagoras wrote a book of philosophy, but only fragments of the first part of this have survived, through preservation in work of Simplicius of Cilicia in the 6th century AD.

FactSnippet No. 558,501
11.

However, although Anaxagoras almost certainly lived in Athens during the lifetime of Socrates was born on 470 BCE, and there is no evidence that they ever met.

FactSnippet No. 558,502
12.

Anaxagoras is mentioned by Socrates during his trial in Plato's Apology.

FactSnippet No. 558,503
13.

Roman author Valerius Maximus preserves a different tradition: Anaxagoras, coming home from a long voyage, found his property in ruin, and said: "If this had not perished, I would have"—a sentence described by Valerius as being "possessed of sought-after wisdom".

FactSnippet No. 558,504
14.

Anaxagoras appears as a character in Faust, Part II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

FactSnippet No. 558,505