A quotation from Anaximenes
Quotation
Air differs in rarity and density: rarefied it becomes fire; condensed, wind, then cloud, then water, then earth, then stone.
Anaximenes
Everything is air, thickening and thinning. The first attempt to explain change by a single measurable process.
The third of the Milesians took a step his teacher Anaximander would have called a retreat, and yet it was an advance. Anaximenes returned to a definite substance, air, but added the mechanism the others lacked. Air rarefies into fire and condenses into wind, cloud, water, earth, and stone. One stuff, one process, the whole world explained by how tightly it is packed. Breath is the soul, and as breath holds a person together, air holds the cosmos together. It is the first clear case of explaining quality by quantity, the seed of every physics that followed.
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What does Anaximenes mean by this quotation?
Everything is air, thickening and thinning. The first attempt to explain change by a single measurable process. The third of the Milesians took a step his teacher Anaximander would have called a retreat, and yet it was an advance. Anaximenes returned to a definite substance, air, but added the mechanism the others lacked. Air rare…