Anaximander, (born 610 bc, Miletus—died 546/545 bc), Greek philosopher, often called the founder of astronomy. He apparently wrote treatises on geography, astronomy, and cosmology that survived for several centuries and made a map of the known world. He was the first thinker to develop a cosmology. A rationalist, he prized symmetry and used geometry and mathematical proportions to help map the heavens; his theories thus departed from earlier, more mystical conceptions and foreshadowed the achievements of later astronomers. Whereas earlier theories had suggested Earth was suspended or supported from elsewhere in the heavens, Anaximander asserted that Earth remained unsupported at the centre of the universe because it had no reason to move in any direction.
