title: Sherman Firefly

text: Kilbourn had to deal with other problems. On the standard Sherman tank, there was a single hatch in the turret through which the commander, gunner and loader entered and left the tank. The 17-pounder's larger breech and recoil system made it significantly more difficult for the loader to exit quickly; a new hatch was cut into the top of the turret over the gunner's position to resolve this. The final major change was the elimination of the hull gunner in favour of space for more 17-pounder ammunition, which was longer than the original 75 mm.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: By October and November 1943, enthusiasm began to grow for the project. The 21st Army Group was informed of the new tank in October 1943. Even before final testing had taken place in February 1944, an order for 2,100 Sherman tanks armed with the 17-pounder gun was placed, as the Challenger programme was suffering constant delays and it was realised that few would be ready for Normandy. Even worse, it was discovered that the Cromwell did not have a turret ring wide enough to take the new High Velocity 75mm gun (50 calibres long), so it would have to be armed with the general purpose Ordnance QF 75 mm. This left the Firefly as the only tank available with firepower superior to the QF 75 mm gun in the British arsenal, earning it the "highest priority" from Winston Churchill.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: The nickname "Firefly" was adopted due to the bright muzzle flash of the main gun. It was sometimes used at unit level (brigade/regiment) war diaries from March 1944, along with "Mayfly". During the war, Shermans with 17-pounder guns were usually known as "1C", "1C Hybrid", or "VC", depending on the basic mark of the vehicle. In British nomenclature, a "C" at the end of the Roman numeral indicated a tank equipped with the 17-pounder.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: The name "Firefly" in period sources often refers to any vehicle with a 17-pounder gun, often the 17pdr SP Achilles M10C variant of the M10 tank destroyer.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: The main armament of the Sherman Firefly was the Ordnance Quick-Firing 17-pounder. Designed as the successor to the British QF 6-pounder, the 17-pounder was the most powerful British tank gun of the war, and one of the most powerful of any nationality, being able to penetrate more armour than the 8.8 cm KwK 36 fitted to the German Tiger I.The 17-pounder was theoretically able to penetrate some of armour at and at using standard armour piercing, capped, ballistic capped (APCBC) ammunition. Armour piercing, discarding sabot (APDS) ammunition could penetrate some 256 mm of armour at 500 m and 233 mm at 1,000 m, which on paper could defeat the armour of almost every German armoured fighting vehicle at any likely range. However, war production APDS rounds lacked accuracy, and the 50 mm penetrator was less destructive after it had penetrated enemy tank armour than the 76.2 mm APCBC shell. APDS ammunition was rare until the post-war period. While the Sherman Firefly was capable of carrying 77 rounds of ammunition, design features of the tank meant only 23 rounds were easily and readily available when the tank was in action.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Though the 17-pounder had superior anti-tank capabilities, it lacked an effective HE round and was thus inferior to the standard Sherman 75mm gun against soft targets, such as infantry, buildings and lightly armoured vehicles. As the war in Europe neared its close, the Allies found themselves encountering these more often than heavy German tanks. Allied tank units therefore typically refused to completely switch to Fireflies. A good HE shell for the gun only became available in late 1944, and even then was not as potent as the standard Sherman 75 mm HE shell.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Another problem was that the powerful blast from the 17-pounder gun kicked up large amounts of dirt as well as smoke, making it difficult for the gunner to observe the fall of shot (and forcing him to rely on the commander to observe it and to order corrections) and revealing the position of the tank (forcing the Firefly to move every few shots). Furthermore, the recoil and muzzle blast could be severely jarring to Firefly crews, and the muzzle blast frequently caused night blindness. The latter was a problem common to any tank armed with a high velocity gun, including the Panther and Tiger I. The cramped turret meant that loading the large shell was difficult, so the Firefly had a slower rate of fire than a standard M4 Sherman. Since the Firefly was a stopgap, these problems were never eliminated, as it was supposed to be retired with the introduction of the new British tank designs such as the Comet and later Centurion.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: The Firefly's secondary armament was the standard 0.3 inch (7.62 mm) Browning M1919 machine gun coaxial in the turret, the hull-mounted machine gun being removed to increase ammunition storage for the main gun. A .50-inch (12.7 mm) M2 Browning heavy machine gun was also fitted on the turret roof, though many crews removed it, due to its awkward mounting and position near the commander, which limited a full 360-degree view when the hatch was open.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: In 1945, some British Fireflies were fitted with a rail on either side of the turret for two "60 lb" high-explosive 3-inch rockets. Called "Sherman Tulips", these were used at the Rhine Crossing by the 1st Coldstream Guards. The rockets, accurate when fired from aircraft, were less accurate when fired from a stationary platform, such as a tank, as they had little initial slipstream over the fins. The RP-3 was only effective when its 60-pound warhead hit the target.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Three different variants of Sherman Firefly served during the Second World War, each based on a different variant of the M4 Sherman. The Firefly conversion was carried out on Sherman I (M4), Sherman I Hybrid (M4 Composite) and Sherman V (M4A4) tanks. Some sources state that several Sherman IIs (M4A1) were converted and used in action, but photos allegedly showing these conversions are in fact views of the front half of Sherman I Hybrid Fireflies. To complicate matters, a very small number of Canadian licence-built Sherman IIs (M4A1), the Grizzly, were converted to Fireflies in Canada and used for training, but none saw action. The majority of Shermans converted were the Sherman V/M4A4 model, of which the British received about 7,200. The Sherman VC and IC variants are easily distinguished by their lower hulls; the VC having a lengthened hull, and a larger gaps between the suspension units. They employed the three-piece bolted transmission housing. The Sherman IC usually sported the cast transmission housing. The Hybrid can be distinguished by its upper hull, which is cast and gives it a distinctive curved look in comparison to the more boxy hull of a typical Sherman.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Production of the Firefly started in January 1944 and, by 31 May, some 342 Sherman Fireflies had been delivered to the 21st Army Group for the D-Day landings. As a result, British tank troops were composed of three standard Shermans and one Firefly. The same distribution occurred in Cromwell units, but this caused logistical problems, as each Cromwell troop then needed to be supplied with parts for two different tanks. The Firefly was also slower than the Cromwell. Churchill units received no Fireflies, and as a result often had to rely on any attached M10 or M10 Achilles units to provide increased firepower to deal with tanks their own guns could not eliminate.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Production was limited by the availability of suitable tanks, with the phasing out of 75 mm Sherman production. To make up numbers, Sherman I and Sherman I Hybrids were also converted. From D-Day in June to the end of the Battle of Normandy in late August, almost 400 Sherman Fireflies were converted, more than sufficient to replace any permanent tank losses during the battle. In late 1944, with the creation of an effective high-explosive shell for the 17-pounder gun, British units started to receive two Fireflies per troop. By February 1945, some 2,000 Sherman Fireflies had been built and British, Commonwealth and Polish armoured units were equipped with a 50/50 mix of 75 mm and 17-pounder-armed Shermans.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: In the spring of 1945, production of the Firefly was scaled down, with the last tank being delivered in May 1945. This was the result of several factors, from superior home-grown designs like the Comet and Centurion coming into service to replace the Firefly, to the impending defeat of Nazi Germany, and the inferior design of Japan's tanks, which it seemed would be the next opponents the British would have to face after the fall of Germany.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Production of the Sherman Firefly reached some 2,100 – 2,200 tanks; exact numbers are hard to determine as documents give contradictory totals. "Jane's World War II Tanks and Fighting Vehicles" gives a production of 1,783 vehicles in 1944 and 563 in 1945, for a total of 2,346. "Sherman Firefly" gives a number of 2,002 conversions made between January 1944 and February 1945 or a total of 2,139 conversions.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Fireflies were introduced to armoured brigades and divisions in the 21st Army Group in 1944, just in time for the Normandy landings. The timing was fortunate as Allied intelligence had begun to realise in early 1944 through statistical analysis that the Germans were fielding a much larger number of more formidable tanks (such as the Panther) than had been anticipated. This information was slow to reach Allied military planners, who had mistakenly assumed the Panther, like the Tiger, would be a rare heavy tank with a limited production run, so the number of Panthers deployed came as a surprise to Allied formation commanders and tank crews forced to engage them with guns that could not penetrate the frontal armour except at short range.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Ken Tout, who served as a tank gunner and tank commander in the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry in Normandy in 1944, described the effect of mounting a 17-pounder in the Sherman:


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Panthers and Tigers accounted for only about 126 of the 2,300 German tanks deployed in Normandy; the rest being Panzer IVs, Sturmgeschütz III tank destroyers and other armoured vehicles that the 75 mm Shermans could penetrate. The importance of Caen and Montgomery's operations, which pinned German armoured forces in front of the British positions so the American units could break out to the west, meant that British and other Commonwealth units had to face over 70 per cent of the German armour deployed during the Battle of Normandy, as well as over half of the elite, well-equipped Waffen-SS "Panzer" units. As a result, the Sherman Firefly was perhaps the most valued tank by British and other Commonwealth commanders, as it was the only tank in the British Army able to reliably penetrate the frontal armour of Panthers and Tigers at the standard combat ranges in Normandy.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: This fact did not go unnoticed by the Germans, who realised that these long-barrel Shermans posed a much greater threat to their heavy tanks than the normal Shermans, and German tank crews and anti-tank gun crews were instructed to eliminate Fireflies first. Similarly, the Firefly crews realised that the distinctive long barrel of their 17-pounder gun made their Fireflies stand out from standard Shermans, so they attempted to disguise their tanks to reduce the likelihood of being targeted. Some crews had the front half of the olive drab gun barrel painted white on the bottom, or white with dark green on top, to give the illusion of a shorter gun barrel. Another suggestion was for a shorter wooden dummy gun to be mounted on the rear of the turret and point forward; however, this tactic does not appear to have been used in combat.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Despite being a high priority target, Fireflies appear to have had a statistically lower chance of being knocked out than standard Shermans, probably due more to how they were employed than to the effectiveness of the camouflaging of the long barrel. Given the high value placed on Fireflies, a common tactic was for commanders to reconnoitre the battlefield before a battle, to look for good overwatch positions. During the battle, Fireflies would stay behind in those positions and cover the ordinary Shermans as they pushed forward, eliminating any enemy tanks that revealed themselves when they opened fire on the advancing Shermans, and moving forward only when the standard Shermans had secured the area or when the Fireflies could no longer cover them. Similarly, when on the move, troop commanders tended to position Fireflies in the rear to reduce the chance of their being knocked out. Given the relatively unpredictable nature of battle, this was not always possible and many times, Fireflies were forced to engage enemies in the open, where they could be identified.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Despite this, the Firefly's increased firepower was much valued, and during many engagements, the Firefly proved its worth, knocking out Tigers and Panthers at long range, as well as less formidable tanks such as Panzer IVs and StuG tank destroyers.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: One example of this increased firepower was displayed by Lt. G. K. Henry's Firefly during the defence of Norrey-en-Bessin on 9 June against an attack by the 3rd Company of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division. Determined to capture the village in preparation for a larger offensive to drive the British and Canadians back into the sea, Kurt Meyer ordered 12 Panthers of the 3rd Company and infantry to attack Norrey and drive out the Canadians. The attack got under way at 1300 hours, with the Panthers racing towards the town at full speed, stopping only to fire their guns. They quickly outran their infantry support, which was forced to ground by Allied artillery fire. Within of the village, nine standard Shermans of the Canadian 1st Hussars opened fire into the advancing Panthers' flanks. Lt. Henry's gunner, Trooper A. Chapman, waited until the Panthers "lined up like ducks in a row" and quickly knocked out five Panthers with just six rounds. The attack was repulsed with the loss of seven of the 12 Panthers.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: A similar event occurred on 14 June, during Operation Perch. Sgt. Harris of the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards, along with three standard Shermans, set up defensive positions along with the infantry after capturing the village of Lingèvres, near Tilly-sur-Seulles, France. Looking through his binoculars, Sgt. Harris spotted two Panthers advancing from the east. He opened fire at a range of , knocking out the lead Panther with his first shot, and the other with his second. Relocating to a well-concealed flanking position on the other side of the town, he spotted another three Panthers approaching from the west. He and his gunner, Trooper Mackillop, knocked them out with three rounds.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: In perhaps their most famous action, British and Canadian Fireflies defeated the heavy armour of a German counterattack at Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil during Operation Totalize on 8 August 1944, resulting in the destruction of five Tiger tanks and the death of the attack's leader, the noted German tank commander Michael Wittmann. The battle involved Fireflies from A Squadron, 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry, 33rd Armoured Brigade; A Squadron, the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade and B Squadron, The 144th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps, 33rd Armoured Brigade. They ambushed a group of seven Tiger tanks from the 3rd Company and HQ Company, 101st SS Heavy Tank Battalion supported by Panzer IV tanks and StuG IV assault guns. The tanks of the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry reached the French village of Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil on the morning of 8 August 1944. While B Squadron stayed around the village, A and C Squadrons moved further south into a wood called Delle de la Roque.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: C Squadron positioned themselves on the east side of the woods and the under-strength A Squadron in the southern portion with No. 3 Troop on the western edge of the wood. From this position, they overlooked a large open section of ground and were able to watch as German tanks advanced up Route Nationale 158 from the village of Cintheaux. They held their fire until the German tanks were well within range. Ekins, the gunner of Sergeant Gordon's Sherman Firefly ("Velikye Luki" – A Squadron's tanks were named after towns in the Soviet Union) - had yet to fire his gun in action. With the Tigers in range a 12-minute exchange of fire commenced that saw Ekins destroy all three Tigers that No. 3 Troop could see. A short time later, the main German counterattack was made in the direction of C Squadron. A Squadron (less Sgt Gordon, who had been wounded and had already bailed out of the Firefly) moved over to support them and Ekins destroyed a Panzer IV before his tank was hit and the crew were forced to bail out.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: Although the Normandy campaign had priority, Fireflies also served with distinction in British, Commonwealth and Polish units in the Italian campaign. British units in Italy also used the Sherman with the US 76 mm gun M1.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: In 1947, the Argentine Army purchased surplus armament that was stored in Belgium, including some 200 Sherman Fireflies of all sub-types; they were in use from 1948. Starting in 1959, 150 Fireflies Mk.V had their original Chrysler A-57 engine substituted for a Ford GAA V8, to improve reliability; these remained in service until the mid-1970s. Due to increase in regional conflicts, the Fireflies were up-graded to the "Sherman Repotenciado" standard, which included a new gun (derived from the French CN-105-57) and a new engine (the French diesel Poyaud 520/V8-S2); the first units were incorporated in January 1978.


title: Sherman Firefly

text: In 1971, the Argentine Army transferred to the Paraguayan Army three upgraded Fireflies; these were exchanged in 1988 for three "Sherman Repotenciados" recently decommissioned.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost. Knowledge of their views comes from "testimonia", i.e. later authors' discussions of the work of pre-Socratics. Philosophy found fertile ground in the ancient Greek world because of the close ties with neighboring civilizations and the rise of autonomous civil entities, "poleis".


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pre-Socratic philosophy began in the 6th century BCE with the three Milesians: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. They all attributed the "arche" (a word that could take the meaning of "origin," "substance" or "principle") of the world to, respectively, water, "apeiron" (the unlimited), and air governed by "nous" (mind or intelligence). Another three pre-Socratic philosophers came from nearby Ionian towns: Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras. Xenophanes is known for his critique of the anthropomorphism of gods. Heraclitus, who was notoriously difficult to understand, is known for his maxim on impermanence, "ta panta rhei," and for attributing fire to be the arche of the world. Pythagoras created a cult-like following that advocated that the universe was made up of numbers. The Eleatic school (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus) followed in the 5th century BCE. Parmenides claimed that only one thing exists and nothing can change. Zeno and Melissus mainly defended Parmenides' opinion. Anaxagoras and Empedocles offered a pluralistic account of how the universe was created. Leucippus and Democritus are known for their atomism, and their views that only void and matter exist. The Sophists advanced critical thinking and philosophical relativism.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The impact of the pre-Socratics has been enormous. The pre-Socratics invented some of the central concepts of Western civilization, such as naturalism and rationalism, and paved the way for scientific methodology.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: "Pre-Socratic" is a term adopted in the 19th century to refer to this group of philosophers. It was first used by the German philosopher J.A. Eberhard as ""vorsokratische Philosophie"' in the late 18th century. In earlier literature they were referred to as "physikoi" ("physicists", after "physis", "nature"), and their activity, as "physiologoi" (physical or natural philosophers), with this usage arising with Aristotle to differentiate them from "theologoi" (theologians) and "mythologoi" (storytellers and bards who conveyed Greek mythology), who attributed natural phenomena to the gods.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The term was coined to highlight a fundamental change in philosophical inquiries between the philosophers who lived before Socrates, who were interested in the structure of nature and "cosmos" (i.e., the universe, with the implication that the universe had order to it), and Socrates and his successors, who were mostly interested in ethics and politics. The term comes with drawbacks, as several of the pre-Socratics were highly interested in ethics and how to live the best life. Further, the term implies that the pre-Socratics are less significant than Socrates, or even that they were merely a stage (implying teleology) to classical era philosophy. The term is also chronologically inaccurate, as the last of the pre-Socratics were contemporaries of Socrates.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: According to James Warren, the distinction between the pre-Socratic philosophers and philosophers of the classical era is demarcated not so much by Socrates, but by geography and what texts survived. The shift from the pre-Socratic to the classical periods involves a shift from philosophers being dispersed throughout the Greek-speaking world to their being concentrated in Athens. Further, starting in the classical period we have complete surviving texts, whereas in the pre-Socratic era we have only fragments. Scholar André Laks distinguishes two traditions of separating pre-Socratics from Socratics, dating back to the classical era and running through current times. The first tradition is the Socratic-Ciceronian, which uses the content of their philosophical inquires to divide the two groups: the pre-Socratics were interested in nature whereas Socrates focused on human affairs. The other tradition, the Platonic-Aristotelian, emphasizes method as the distinction between the two groups, as Socrates moved to a more epistemological approach of studying various concepts. Because of the drawbacks of the term pre-Socratic, "early Greek philosophy" is also used, most commonly in Anglo-Saxon literature.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Very few fragments of the works of the pre-Socratic philosophers have survived. The knowledge we have of the pre-Socratics derives from the accounts of later writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Diogenes Laërtius, Stobaeus, and Simplicius, and some early Christian theologians, especially Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus of Rome. Many of the works are titled "Peri Physeos", or "On Nature", a title probably attributed later by other authors. These accounts, known as "testimonia" (testimonies), often come from biased writers. Consequently, it is sometimes difficult to determine the actual line of argument some pre-Socratics used in supporting their views. Adding more difficulty to their interpretation is the obscure language they used. Plato paraphrased the pre-Socratics and showed no interest in accurately representing their views. Aristotle was more accurate, but saw them under the scope of his philosophy. Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor, wrote an encyclopedic book "Opinion of the Physicists" that was the standard work about the pre-Socratics in ancient times. It is now lost, but Simplicius relied on it heavily in his accounts.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: In 1903, the German professors H. Diels and W. Kranz published "Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker" ("The Fragments of the pre-Socratics"), which collected all of the known fragments. Scholars now use this book to reference the fragments using a coding scheme called Diels–Kranz numbering. The first two characters of the scheme are "DK" for Diels and Kranz. Next is a number representing a specific philosopher. After that is a code regarding whether the fragment is a "testimonia", coded as "A", or "B" if is a direct quote from the philosopher. Last is a number assigned to the fragment, which may include a decimal to reflect specific lines of a fragment. For example, "DK59B12.3" identifies line 3 of Anaxagoras fragment 12. A similar way of referring to quotes is the system prefixed with "LM" by André Laks and Glenn W. Most who edited "Early Greek Philosophy" in 2016.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Collectively, these fragments are called "doxography" (derived from the latin "doxographus"; derived from the Greek word for "opinion" "doxa").


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Philosophy emerged in ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE. The pre-Socratic era lasted about two centuries, during which the expanding Persian Achaemenid Empire was stretching to the west, while the Greeks were advancing in trade and sea routes, reaching Cyprus and Syria. The first pre-Socratics lived in Ionia, on the western coast of Anatolia. Persians conquered the towns of Ionia c. 540 BCE and Persian tyrants then ruled them. The Greeks revolted in 499 BCE, but ultimately were defeated in 494 BCE. Slowly but steadily Athens became the philosophical center of Greece by the middle of the fifth century. Athens was entering its Classical Era, with philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, but the impact of the pre-Socratics continued.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Several factors contributed to the birth of pre-Socratic philosophy in Ancient Greece. Ionian towns, especially Miletus, had close trade relations with Egypt and Mesopotamia, cultures with observations about the natural world that differed from those of the Greeks. Apart from technical skills and cultural influences, of paramount significance was that the Greeks acquired the alphabet c. 800 BCE.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Another factor was the ease and frequency of intra-Greek travel, which led to the blending and comparison of ideas. During the sixth century BCE, various philosophers and other thinkers moved easily around Greece, especially visiting pan-Hellenic festivals. While long-distance communication was difficult during ancient times, persons, philosophers, and books moved through other parts of the Greek peninsula, the Aegean islands, and Magna Graecia, a coastal area in Southern Italy.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The democratic political system of independent "poleis" also contributed to the rise of philosophy. Most Greek towns were not ruled by autocrats or priests, allowing citizens to question freely a wide range of issues. Various "poleis" flourished and became wealthy, especially Miletus. which was a centre of trade and production during the early phases of pre-Socratic philosophy. Trade of grain, oil, wine, and other commodities among each "polis" and colonies meant these towns were not isolated but embedded – and economically dependent – on a complex and changeable web of trade routes.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Greek mythology also influenced the birth of philosophy. The philosophers' ideas, were, to a certain extent, answers to questions that were subtly present in the work of Homer and Hesiod. The pre-Socratics arose from a world dominated by myths, sacred places, and local deities. The work of epic poets such as Homer, Hesiod and others reflected this environment. They are considered predecessors of the pre-Socratics since they seek to address the origin of the world and to organize traditional folklore and legends systematically. However, their answers were rather simplistic and resisted naturalistic explanations, hence they were far from being named as philosophers. Greek popular religion contained many features of the religions of neighboring civilizations, such as the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Hittites. The first pre-Socratic philosophers also traveled extensively to other lands, meaning that pre-Socratic thought had roots abroad as well as domestically.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Homer, in his two epic poems, not only personifies gods and other natural phenomena, such as the Night, but he hints at some views on the origin and the nature of the world that came under scrutiny by the pre-Socratics. In his epic poem "Theogony" (literally meaning the birth of gods) Hesiod (c. 700 BCE) describes the origin of gods, and apart from the solid mythical structure, one can notice an attempt towards organizing beliefs using some form of rationalization; an example would be that Night gives birth to Death, Sleep and Dreams. Transmigration of life, a belief of the Orphics, a religious cult originating from Thrace, had affected the thought of the 5th century BCE but the overall influence of their cosmology on philosophy is disputed. Pherecydes, a poet, magician, and contemporary of Thales, in his book describes a particular cosmogony, asserting that three gods pre-existed – a step towards rationality.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The most important feature of pre-Socratic philosophy was the use of reason to explain the universe. The pre-Socratic philosophers shared the intuition that there was a single explanation that could explain both the plurality and the singularity of the whole – and that explanation would not be direct actions of the gods. The pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations of the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations, initiating analytic and critical thought. Their efforts were directed at the investigation of the ultimate basis and essential nature of the external world. Many sought the material principle ("arche") of things, and the method of their origin and disappearance. They emphasized the rational unity of things and rejected supernatural explanations, seeking natural principles at work in the world and human society. The pre-Socratics saw the world as a "cosmos", an ordered arrangement that could be understood via rational inquiry. In their effort to make sense of the cosmos they coined new terms and concepts such as rhythm, symmetry, analogy, deductionism, reductionism, mathematicazion of nature and others.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: An important term that is met in the thought of several pre-Socratic philosophers is "arche". Depending on the context, it can take various related meanings. It could mean the beginning or origin with the undertone that there is an effect on the things to follow. Also, it might mean a principle or a cause (especially in Aristotelian tradition).


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: A common feature of the pre-Socratics is the absence of empiricism and experimentation in order to prove their theories. This may have been because of a lack of instruments, or because of a tendency to view the world as a unity, undeconstructable, so it would be impossible for an external eye to observe tiny fractions of nature under experimental control.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: According to Jonathan Barnes, a professor of ancient philosophy, pre-Socratic philosophy exhibits three significant features: they were "internal", "systematic" and "economical". Internal meaning they tried to explain the world with characteristics found within this world. Systematic because they tried to universalize their findings. Economical because they tried to invoke only a few new terms. Based on these features, they reached their most significant achievement, they changed the course of human thought from myth to philosophy and science.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The pre-Socratics were not atheists; however, they minimized the extent of the gods' involvement in natural phenomena such as thunder or totally eliminated the gods from the natural world.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pre-Socratic philosophy encompasses the first of the three phases of ancient Greek philosophy, which spanned around a thousand years. The pre-Socratic phase itself is divided into three phases. The first phase of pre-Socratic philosophy, mainly the Milesians, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus, consisted of rejecting traditional cosmogony and attempting to explain nature based on empirical observations and interpretations. A second phase – that of the Eleatics – resisted the idea that change or motion can happen. Based on their radical monism, they believed that only one substance exists and forms Kosmos. The Eleatics were also monists (believing that only one thing exists and everything else is just a transformation of it). In the third phase, the post-Eleatics (mainly Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus) opposed most Eleatic teaching and returned to the naturalism of the Milesians.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The pre-Socratics were succeeded by the second phase of ancient philosophy, where the philosophical movements of Platonism, Cynicism, Cyrenaicism, Aristotelianism, Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism, Academic skepticism, and Stoicism rose to prominence until 100 BCE. In the third phase, philosophers studied their predecessors.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The Milesian school was located in Miletus, Ionia, in the 6th century BCE. It consisted of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, who most probably had a teacher-pupil relationship. They were mainly occupied with the origin and substance of the world; each of them attributed the Whole to a single "arche" (beginning or principle), starting the tradition of naturalistic monism.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Thales (c. 624–546 BCE) is considered to be the father of philosophy. None of his writings have survived. He is considered the first western philosopher since he was the first to use reason, to use proof, and to generalize. He created the word "cosmos", the first word to describe the universe. He contributed to geometry and predicted the eclipse of 585 BCE. Thales may have been of Phoenician ancestry. Miletus was a meeting point and trade centre of the then great civilizations, and Thales visited the neighbouring civilizations, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, and Phoenicia. In Egypt, geometry was advanced as a means of separating agricultural fields. Thales, though, advanced geometry with his abstract deductive reasoning reaching universal generalizations. Proclus, a later Athenian philosopher, attributed the theorem now known as Thales's theorem to Thales. He is also known for being the first to claim that the base angles of isosceles triangles are equal, and that a diameter bisects the circle. Thales visited Sardis, as many Greeks then, where astronomical records were kept and used astronomical observations for practical matters (oil harvesting). Thales was widely considered a genius in ancient times and was revered as one of the Seven Sages of Greece.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Most importantly, what marks Thales as the first philosopher is the posing of the fundamental philosophical question about the origin and the substance of the world, while providing an answer based on empirical evidence and reasoning. He attributed the origin of the world to an element instead of a divine being. Our knowledge of Thales' claim derives from Aristotle. Aristotle, while discussing opinions of previous philosophers, tells us that "Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the principle (arche) is water." What he meant by arche, is a matter of interpretation (might be the origin, the element, or an ontological matrix), but regardless of the various interpretations, he conceived the world as One thing instead of a collection of various items and speculated on the binding/original elements.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Another important aspect of Thales' philosophy is his claim that everything is full of gods. What he meant by that is again a matter of interpretation, that could be from a theistic view to an atheist one. But the most plausible explanation, suggested by Aristotle, is that Thales is advocating a theory of hylozoism, that the universe, the sum of all things that exist, is divine and alive. Lastly, another notable claim by Thales is that earth "rests on water"- maybe that was a conclusion after observing fish fossils on land.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Anaximander (610–546 BCE), also from Miletus, was 25 years younger than Thales. He was a member of the elite of Miletus, wealthy and a statesman. He showed interest in many fields, including mathematics and geography. He drew the first map of the world, was the first to conclude that the earth is spherical, and made instruments to mark time, something like a clock. In response to Thales, he postulated as the first principle an undefined, unlimited substance without qualities ("apeiron"), out of which the primary opposites, hot and cold, moist and dry, became differentiated. His answer was an attempt to explain observable changes by attributing them to a single source that transforms to various elements. Like Thales, he provided a naturalistic explanation for phenomena previously given supernatural explanations. He is also known for speculating on the origin of mankind. He proclaimed that the earth is not situated in another structure but lies unsupported in the middle of the universe. Further, he developed a rudimentary evolutionary explanation for biodiversity in which constant universal powers affected the lives of animals. According to Giorgio de Santillana, a philosophy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anaximander's conception of a universe governed by laws shaped the philosophical thinking of centuries to come and was as important as the discovery of fire or Einstein's breakthroughs in science.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Little is known of Anaximenes' (585–525 BCE) life. He was a younger contemporary and friend of Anaximander, and the two worked together on various intellectual projects. He also wrote a book on nature in prose. Anaximenes took for his principle "aēr" (air), conceiving it as being modified, via thickening and thinning, into the other classical elements: fire, wind, clouds, water, and earth. While his theory resembled that of Anaximander, as they both claimed a single source of the universe, Anaximenes suggested sophisticated mechanisms in which air is transformed to other elements, mainly because of changes of density. Since the classical era, he was considered the father of naturalistic explanations. Anaximenes expanded Anaximander's attempt to find a unitary cause explaining natural phenomena both living and nonliving, without, according to James Warren, having to "reduce living things in some way to mere locations of material change".


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Xenophanes was born in Colophon, an Ionian town near Miletus. He was a well-traveled poet whose primary interests were theology and epistemology. Concerning theology, he pointed out that we did not know whether there was one god or many gods, or in such case whether there was a hierarchy among them. To critique the anthropomorphic representation of the gods by his contemporary Greeks, he pointed out that different nations depicted their gods as looking like themselves. He famously said that if oxen, horses, or lions could draw, they would draw their gods as oxen, horses, or lions. This critique was not limited to the looks of gods but also their behaviour. Greek mythology, mostly shaped by the poets Homer and Hesiod, attributed moral failures such as jealously and adultery to the gods. Xenophanes opposed this. He thought gods must be morally superior to humans. Xenophanes, however, never claimed the gods were omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or omniscient. Xenophanes also offered naturalistic explanations for phenomena such as the sun, the rainbow and St. Elmo's fire. Traditionally these were attributed to divine intervention but according to Xenophanes they were actually effects of clouds. These explanations of Xenophanes indicate empiricism in his thought and might constitute a kind of proto-scientism. Scholars have overlooked his cosmology and naturalism since Aristotle (maybe due to Xenophanes' lack of teleology) until recently but current literature suggests otherwise. Concerning epistemology, Xenophanes questioned the validity of human knowledge. Humans usually tend to assert their beliefs are real and represent truth. While Xenophanes was a pessimist about the capability of humans to reach knowledge, he also believed in gradual progress through critical thinking. Xenophanes tried to find naturalistic explanations for meteorological and cosmological phenomena.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Ancient philosophy historian Alexander Mourelatos notes Xenophanes used a pattern of thought that is still in use by modern metaphysics. Xenophanes, by reducing meteorological phenomena to clouds, created an argument that "X in reality is Y", for example B32, "What they call Iris [the rainbow] that too is in reality a cloud: one that


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: appears to the eye as purple, red, and green. This is still use[d] today 'lightning is massive electrical discharge' or 'items such as tables are a cloud of micro-particles'." Mourelatos comments that the type of analogy that the cloud analogy is remains present in scientific language and "...is the modern philosopher's favourite subject for illustrations of inter-theoretic identity".


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: According to Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius, Xenophanes was Parmenides' teacher; but is a matter of debate in current literature whether Xenophanes should also be considered an Eleatic.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The hallmark of Heraclitus' philosophy is flux. In fragment DK B30, Heraclitus writes: "This world-order [Kosmos], the same of all, no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures". Heraclitus posited that all things in nature are in a state of perpetual flux. Like previous monist philosophers, Heraclitus claimed that the "arche" of the world was fire, which was subject to change – that makes him a materialist monist. From fire all things originate and all things return to it again in a process of eternal cycles. Fire becomes water and earth and vice versa. These everlasting modifications explain his view that the cosmos "was and is and will be". The idea of continual flux is also met in the "river fragments". There, Heraclitus claims we can not step into the same river twice, a position summarized with the slogan "ta panta rhei" (everything flows). One fragment reads: "Into the same rivers we both step and do not step; we both are and are not" (DK 22 B49a). Heraclitus is seemingly suggesting that not only the river is constantly changing, but we do as well, even hinting at existential questions about humankind.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Another key concept of Heraclitus is that opposites somehow mirror each other, a doctrine called unity of opposites. Two fragments relating to this concept state, "As the same thing in us is living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and those in turn having changed around are these" (B88) and "Cold things warm up, the hot cools off, wet becomes dry, dry becomes wet" (B126). Heraclitus' doctrine on the unity of opposites suggests that unity of the world and its various parts is kept through the tension produced by the opposites. Furthermore, each polar substance contains its opposite, in a continual circular exchange and motion that results in the stability of the cosmos. Another of Heraclitus' famous axioms highlights this doctrine (B53): "War is father of all and king of all; and some he manifested as gods, some as men; some he made slaves, some free", where war means the creative tension that brings things into existence.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: A fundamental idea in Heraclitus is "logos", an ancient Greek word with a variety of meanings; Heraclitus might have used a different meaning of the word with each usage in his book. "Logos" seems like a universal law that unites the cosmos, according to a fragment: "Listening not to me but to the logos, it is wise to agree (homologein) that all things are one" (DK 22 B50). While "logos" is everywhere, very few people are familiar with it. B 19 reads: [hoi polloi] "...do not know how to listen [to Logos] or how to speak [the truth]" Heraclitus' thought on "logos" influenced the Stoics, who referred to him to support their belief that rational law governs the universe.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pythagoras (582–496 BCE) was born on Samos, a small island near Miletus. He moved to Croton at about age 30, where he established his school and acquired political influence. Some decades later he had to flee Croton and relocate to Metapontum.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pythagoras was famous for studying numbers and the geometrical relations of numbers. A large following of Pythagoreans adopted and extended his doctrine. They advanced his ideas, reaching the claim that everything consists of numbers, the universe is made by numbers and everything is a reflection of analogies and geometrical relations. Numbers, music and philosophy, all interlinked, could comfort the beauty-seeking human soul and hence Pythagoreans espoused the study of mathematics.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pythagorianism perceived the world as perfect harmony, dependent on number, and aimed at inducing humankind likewise to lead a harmonious life, including ritual and dietary recommendations. Their way of life was ascetic, restraining themselves from various pleasures and food. They were vegetarians and placed enormous value on friendship. Pythagoras politically was an advocate of a form of aristocracy, a position which later Pythagoreans rejected, but generally, they were reactionary and notably repressed women. Other pre-Socratic philosophers mocked Pythagoras for his belief in reincarnation.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Notable Pythagorians included Philolaus (470-380 BCE), Alcmaeon of Croton, Archytas (428-347 BCE) and Echphantus. The most notable was Alcmaeon, a medical and philosophical writer. Alcmaeon noticed that most organs in the body come in pairs and suggested that human health depends on harmony between opposites (hot/cold, dry/wet), and illness is due to an imbalance of them. He was the first to think of the brain as the center of senses and thinking. Philolaus advanced cosmology through his discovery of heliocentricism – the idea that the Sun lies in the middle of the earth's orbit and other planets.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pythagoreanism influenced later Christian currents as Neoplatonism, and its pedagogical methods were adapted by Plato. Furthermore, there seems to be a continuity in some aspects of Plato's philosophy. As Prof. Carl Huffman notes, Plato had a tendency to invoke mathematics in explaining natural phenomena, and he also believed in the immortality, even divinity of the human soul.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The Eleatic school is named after Elea, an ancient Greek town on the southern Italian Peninsula. Parmenides is considered the founder of the school. Other eminent Eleatics include Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. According to Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius, Xenophanes was Parmenides' teacher, and it is debated whether Xenophanes should also be considered an Eleatic. Parmenides was born in Elea to a wealthy family around 515 BCE. Parmenides of Elea was interested in many fields, such as biology and astronomy. He was the first to deduce that the earth is spherical. He was also involved in his town's political life.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Parmenides' contributions were paramount not only to ancient philosophy but to all of western metaphysics and ontology. Parmenides wrote a hard to interpret poem, named "On Nature" or "On What-is", that substantially influenced later Greek philosophy. Only 150 fragments of this poem survive. It tells a story of a young man ("kouros" in ancient Greek) dedicated to finding the truth carried by a goddess on a long journey to the heavens. The poem consists of three parts, the proem (i.e., preface), the "Way of Truth" and the "Way of Opinion". Very few pieces from the "Way of Opinion" survive. In that part, Parmenides must have been dealing with cosmology, judging from other authors' references. The "Way of Truth" was then, and is still today, considered of much more importance. In the "Way of Truth", the goddess criticizes the logic of people who do not distinguish the real from the non-existent ("What-is" and "What-is-Not"). In this poem Parmenides unfolds his philosophy: that all things are One, and therefore nothing can be changed or altered. Hence, all the things that we think to be true, even ourselves, are false representations. What-is, according to Parmenides, is a physical sphere that is unborn, unchanged, and infinite. This is a monist vision of the world, far more radical than that of Heraclitus. The goddess teaches Kouros to use his reasoning to understand whether various claims are true or false, discarding senses as fallacious. Other fundamental issues raised by Parmenides' poem are the doctrine that nothing comes from nothing and the unity of being and thinking. As quoted by DK fragment 3: "To gar auto noein estin te kai einai" (For to think and to be is one and the same).


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Zeno and Melissus continued Parmenides' thought on cosmology. Zeno is mostly known for his paradoxes, i.e., self-contradictory statements which served as proofs that Parmenides' monism was valid, and that pluralism was invalid. The most common theme of those paradoxes involved traveling a distance, but since that distance comprises infinite points, the traveler could never accomplish it. His most famous is the Achilles paradox, which is mentioned by Aristotelis: "The second is called the 'Achilles' and says that the slowest runner will never be caught by the fastest, because it is necessary for the pursuer first to arrive at the point from which the pursued set off, so it is necessary that the slower will always be a little ahead." (Aristotle Phys. 239b14–18 [DK 29 A26]) Melissus defended and advanced Parmenides' theory using prose, without invoking divinity or mythical figures. He tried to explain why we think various non-existent objects exist.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The Eleatics' focus on Being through means of logic initiated the philosophical discipline of ontology. Other philosophers influenced by the Eleatics (such as the Sophists, Plato, and Aristotle) further advanced logic, argumentation, mathematics and especially "elenchos" (proof). The Sophists even placed Being under the scrutiny of elenchos. Because of the Eleatics reasoning was acquiring a formal method.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The Pluralist school marked a return to Milesian natural philosophy, though much more refined because of Eleatic criticism.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Anaxagoras was born in Ionia, but was the first major philosopher to emigrate to Athens. He was soon associated with the Athenian statesman Pericles and, probably due to this association, was accused by a political opponent of Pericles for impiety as Anaxagoras held that the sun was not associated with divinity; it was merely a huge burning stone. Pericles helped Anaxagoras flee Athens and return to Ionia. Anaxagoras was also a major influence on Socrates.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Anaxagoras is known for his "theory of everything". He claimed that "in everything there is a share of everything." Interpretations differ as to what he meant. Anaxagoras was trying to stay true to the Eleatic principle of the everlasting (What-is) while also explaining the diversity of the natural world. Anaxagoras accepted Parmenides' doctrine that everything that exists (What-is) has existed forever, but contrary to the Eleatics, he added the ideas of "panspermia" and "nous". All objects were mixtures of various elements, such as air, water, and others. One special element was "nous", i.e., mind, which is present in living things and causes motion. According to Anaxagoras, "Nous" was one of the elements that make up the cosmos. Things that had "nous" were alive. According to Anaxagoras, all things are composites of some basic elements; although it is not clear what these elements are. All objects are a mixture of these building blocks and have a portion of each element, except "nous". "Nous" was also considered a building block of the cosmos, but it exists only in living objects. Anaxagoras writes: "In everything there is a portion ("moira") of everything except mind ("nous"), but there are some things in which mind too is present." "Nous" was not just an element of things, somehow it was the cause of setting the universe into motion. Anaxagoras advanced Milesian thought on epistemology, striving to establish an explanation that could be valid for all natural phenomena. Influenced by the Eleatics, he also furthered the exploration of metatheoretical questions such as the nature of knowledge.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Empedocles was born in Akragas, a town in the southern Italian peninsula. According to Diogenes Laertius, Empedocles wrote two books in the form of poems: "Peri Physeos" (On nature) and the "Katharmoi" (Purifications). Some contemporary scholars argue these books might be one; all agree that interpreting Empedocles is difficult.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: On cosmological issues, Empedocles takes from the Eleatic school the idea that the universe is unborn, has always been and always will be. He also continues Anaxagoras' thought on the four "roots" (i.e., classical elements), that by intermixing, they create all things around us. These roots are fire, air, earth, and water. Crucially, he adds two more components, the immaterial forces of love and strife. These two forces are opposite and by acting upon the material of the four roots unite in harmony or tear apart the four roots, with the resulting mixture being all things that exist. Empedocles uses an analogy of how this is possible: as a painter uses a few basic colors to create a painting, the same happens with the four roots. It is not quite clear if love and strife co-operate or have a greater plan, but love and strife are in a continual cycle that generates life and the earth we live in. Other beings, apart from the four roots and love and strife, according to Empedocles' "Purifications" are mortals, gods, and daemons. Like Pythagoras, Empedocles believed in the soul's transmigration and was vegetarian.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Leucippus and Democritus both lived in Abdera, in Thrace. They are most famous for their atomic cosmology even though their thought included many other fields of philosophy, such as ethics, mathematics, aesthetics, politics, and even embryology.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus was a response to the Eleatic school, who held that motion is not possible because everything is occupied with What-is. Democritus and Leucippus reverted the Eleatic axiom, claiming that since motions exist, What-is-not must also exist; hence void exists. Democritus and Leucippus were skeptics regarding the reliability of our senses, but they were confident that motion exists. Atoms, according to Democritus and Leucippus, had some characteristics of the Eleatic What-is: they were homogeneous and indivisible. These characteristics allowed answers to Zeno's paradoxes. Atoms move within the void, interact with each other, and form the plurality of the world we live in, in a purely mechanical manner.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: One conclusion of the Atomists was determinism - the philosophical view that all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. As Leucippus said, (DK 67 B2) "Nothing comes to be random but everything is by reason and out of necessity." Democritus concluded that since everything is atoms and void, several of our senses are not real but conventional. Color, for example, is not a property of atoms; hence our perception of color is a convention. As Democritus said, (DK 68 B9) "By convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colour; in reality atoms and void." This can be interpreted in two ways. According to James Warren there is an eliminativist interpretation, such that Democritus means that color is not real, and there is a relativist interpretation, such that Democritus means that color and taste are not real but are perceived as such by our senses through sensory interaction.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The sophists were a philosophical and educational movement that flourished in ancient Greece before Socrates. They attacked traditional thinking, from gods to morality, paving the way for further advances of philosophy and other disciplines such as drama, social sciences, mathematics, and history.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Plato disparaged the sophists, causing long-lasting harm to their reputation. Plato thought philosophy should be reserved for those who had the appropriate intellect to understand it; whereas the sophists would teach anyone who would pay tuition. The sophists taught rhetoric and how to address issues from multiple viewpoints. Since the sophists and their pupils were persuasive speakers at court or in public, they were accused of moral and epistemological relativism, which indeed some sophists appeared to advocate. Prominent sophists include Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Thrasymachus, Prodicus, Callicles, Antiphon, and Critias.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Protagoras is mostly known for two of his quotes. One is that "[humans are..] "the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, of things that are not that they are not"" which is commonly interpreted as affirming philosophical relativism, but it can also be interpreted as claiming that knowledge is only relevant to humankind, that moral rightness and other forms of knowledge are relevant to and limited to human mind and perception. The other quote is, "Concerning the gods, I cannot ascertain whether they exist or whether they do not, or what form they have; for there are many obstacles to knowing, including the obscurity of the question and the brevity of human life."


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Gorgias wrote a book named "On Nature," in which he attacked the Eleatics' concepts of What-is and What-is-not. He claimed it is absurd to hold that nonexistence exists, and that What-is was impossible since it had to either be generated or be unlimited and neither is sufficient. There is an ongoing debate among modern scholars whether he was a serious thinker, a precursor of extreme relativism and skepticism, or merely a charlatan.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Antiphon placed natural law against the law of the city. One need not obey the city's laws as long as one will not get caught. One could argue that Antiphon was a careful hedonist—rejecting dangerous pleasures.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Philolaus of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia from Thrace (born c. 460 BCE) are considered the last generation of pre-Socratics. Rather than advancing a cosmological perspective on how our universe is constructed, they are mostly noted for advancing abstract thinking and argumentation.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pythagorianism, Anaxagoras and Empedocles influenced Philolaus. He attempted to explain both the variety and unity of the cosmos. He addressed the need to explain how the various masses of the universe interact among them and coined the term "Harmonia", a binding force that allows mass to take shape. The structure of the cosmos consisted of "apeira" (unlimiteds) and "perainonta" (limiters).


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Diogenes of Apollonia returned to Milesian monism, but with a rather more elegant thought. As he says in DK64 B2 "It seems to me, overall, that all things are alterations of the same things and are the same thing". He explains that things, even when changing shapes, remain ontologically the same.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The "mythologoi", Homer and Hesiod, along with other poets, centuries before the pre-Socratics, thought that true knowledge was exclusive to the divine. But starting with Xenophanes, the pre-Socratics moved towards a more secular approach to knowledge. The pre-Socratics sought a method to understand the cosmos, while being aware that there is a limit to human knowledge.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: While Pythagoras and Empedocles linked their self-proclaimed wisdom to their divinely inspired status, they tried to teach or urge mortals to seek the truth about the natural realm—Pythagoras by means of mathematics and geometry and Empedocles by exposure to experiences. Xenophanes thought that human knowledge was merely an opinion that cannot be validated or proven to be true. According to Jonathan Warren, Xenophanes set the outline of the nature of knowledge. Later, Heraclitus and Parmenides stressed the capability of humans to understand how things stand in nature through direct observation, inquiry, and reflection.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Pre-Socratic thought contributed to the demythologization of the Greek popular religion. The narrative of their thought contributed to shifting the course of ancient Greek philosophy and religion away from the realm of divinity and even paved the way for teleological explanations. They attacked the traditional representations of gods that Homer and Hesiod had established and put Greek popular religion under scrutiny, initiating the schism between natural philosophy and theology. Pre-Socratic philosophers did not have atheistic beliefs, but it should be kept in mind that being an atheist those days was not without social or legal dangers. Despite that, arguments rejecting deities were not barred from the public sphere which can be seen in Protagoras's quotation on the gods: "About the gods I am able to know neither that they exist nor that they do not exist."


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The theological thought starts with the Milesian philosophers. It is evident in Anaximander's idea of the "apeiron" steering everything, which had other abilities usually attributed to Zeus. Later, Xenophanes developed a critique of the anthropomorphism of the gods. Xenophanes set three preconditions for God: he had to be all good, immortal and not resembling humans in appearance, which had a major impact on western religious thought.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The theological thought of Heraclitus and Parmenides is not entirely certain, but it is generally accepted that they believed in some kind of divinity. The Pythagoreans and Empedocles believed in the transmigration of souls. Anaxagoras asserted that cosmic intelligence ("nous") gives life to things. Diogenes of Appollonia expanded this line of thinking and might have constructed the first teleological argument "it would not be possible without Intellection for it so to be divided up that it has the measures of all things — of winter and summer and night and day and rains and winds and fair weather. The other things, too, if one wishes to consider them, one would find disposed of in the best possible way." While some pre-Socratics were trying to find alternatives to divinity, others were setting the foundation of explaining the universe in terms of teleology and intelligent design by a divine force.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Prior to the pre-Socratics, health and illness were thought to be governed by gods. Pre-Socratic philosophy and medicine advanced in parallel, with medicine as a part of philosophy and vice versa. It was Hippocrates (often hailed as the father of medicine) who separated – but not completely – the two domains. Physicians incorporated pre-Socratic philosophical ideas about the nature of the world in their theoretical framework, blurring the border between the two domains. An example is the study of epilepsy, which in popular religion was thought to be a divine intervention to human life, but Hippocrates' school attributed it to nature, just as Milesian rationalism demythologized other natural phenomena such as earthquakes. The systematic study of anatomy, physiology, and illnesses led to the discovery of cause-effect relations and a more sophisticated terminology and understanding of the diseases that ultimately yielded rational science.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The pre-Socratics were the first to attempt to provide reductive explanations for a plethora of natural phenomena.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Firstly, they were preoccupied with the mystery of the cosmic matter—what was the basic substance of the universe? Anaximander suggested "apeiron" (limitless), which hints, as Aristotle analyzed, there is no beginning and no end to it, both chronologically and within the space. Anaximenes placed "aêr" (air) as the primary principle, probably after realizing the importance of air to life and/or the need to explain various observable changes. Heraclitus, also seeking to address the issue of the ever changing world, placed fire as the primary principle of the universe, that transforms to water and earth to produce the universe. Ever-transforming nature is summarized by Heraclitus' axiom "panta rhei" (everything is in a state of flux). Parmenides suggested two ever-lasting primary building blocs, night and day, which together form the universe. Empedocles increased the building blocks to four and named them roots, while also adding Love and Strife, to serve as the driving force for the roots to mingle. Anaxagoras extended even more the plurality of Empedocles, claiming everything is in everything, myriads of substances were mixing among each other except one, "Nous" (mind) that orchestrates everything—but did not attribute divine characteristics to "Nous". Leucippus and Democritus asserted the universe consists of atoms and void, while the motion of atoms is responsible for the changes we observe.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The pre-Socratic intellectual revolution is widely considered to have been the first step towards liberation of the human mind from the mythical world and initiated a march towards reason and scientific thought that yielded modern western philosophy and science. The pre-Socratics sought to understand the various aspects of nature by means of rationalism, observations, and offering explanations that could be deemed as scientific, giving birth to what became Western rationalism. Thales was the first to seek for a unitary arche of the world. Whether arche meant the beginning, the origin, the main principle or the basic element is unclear, but was the first attempt to reduce the explanations of the universe to a single cause, based on reason and not guided by any sort of divinity. Anaximander offered the principle of sufficient reason, a revolutionary argument that would also yield the principle that nothing comes out of nothing. Most of pre-Socratics seemed indifferent to the concept of teleology, especially the Atomists who fiercely rejected the idea. According to them, the various phenomena were the consequence of the motion of atoms without any purpose. Xenophanes also advanced a critique of anthropomorphic religion by highlighting in a rational way the inconsistency of depictions of the gods in Greek popular religion.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Undoubtedly, pre-Socratics paved the way towards science, but whether what they did could constitute science is a matter of debate. Thales had offered the first account of a reduction and a generalization, a significant milestone towards scientific thought. Other pre-Socratics also sought to answer the question of arche, offering various answers, but the first step towards scientific thought was already taken. Philosopher Karl Popper, in his seminal work "Back to Presocratics" (1958) traces the roots of modern science (and the West) to the early Greek philosophers. He writes: "There can be little doubt that the Greek tradition of philosophical criticism had its main source in Ionia ... It thus leads the tradition which created the rational or scientific attitude, and with it our Western civilization, the only civilization, which is based upon science (though, of course, not upon science alone)." Elsewhere in the same study Popper diminishes the significance of the label they should carry as purely semantics. "There is the most perfect possible continuity of thought between [the Presocratics'] theories and the later developments in physics. Whether they are called philosophers, or pre-scientists, or scientists, matters very little." Other scholars did not share the same view. F. M. Cornford considered the Ionanians as dogmatic speculators, due to their lack of empiricism.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The pre-Socratics had a direct influence on classical antiquity in many ways. The philosophic thought produced by the pre-Socratics heavily influenced later philosophers, historians and playwrights. One line of influence was the Socrato-Ciceronian tradition, while the other was the Platonic-Aristotelian.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Socrates, Xenophon and Cicero were highly influenced by the "physiologoi" (naturalists) as they were named in ancient times. The naturalists impressed young Socrates and he was interested in the quest for the substance of the cosmos, but his interest waned as he became steadily more focused on epistemology, virtue, and ethics rather than the natural world. According to Xenophon, the reason was that Socrates believed humans incapable of comprehending the cosmos. Plato, in the "Phaedo", claims that Socrates was uneasy with the materialistic approach of the pre-Socratics, particularly Anaxagoras. Cicero analyzed his views on the pre-Socratics in his "Tusculanae Disputationes", as he distinguished the theoretical nature of pre-Socratic thought from previous "sages" who were interested in more practical issues. Xenophon, like Cicero, saw the difference between pre-Socratics and Socrates being his interest in human affairs ("ta anthropina").


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The pre-Socratics deeply influenced both Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle discussed the pre-Socratics in the first book of "Metaphysics", as an introduction to his own philosophy and the quest for "arche". He was the first to state that philosophy starts with Thales. It is not clear whether Thales talked of water as "arche", or that was a retrospective interpretation by Aristotle, who was examining his predecessors under the scope of his views. More crucially, Aristotle criticized the pre-Socratics for not identifying a purpose as a final cause, a fundamental idea in Aristotelian metaphysics. Plato also attacked pre-Socratic materialism.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Later, during the Hellenistic era, philosophers of various currents focused on the study of nature and advanced pre-Socratic ideas. The Stoics incorporated features from Anaxagoras and Heraclitus, such as "nous" and fire respectively. The Epicureans saw Democritus' atomism as their predecessor while the Sceptics were linked to Xenophanes.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: The pre-Socratics, along with the rest of ancient Greece, invented the central concepts of Western civilization: freedom, democracy, individual autonomy and rationalism. Francis Bacon, a 16th-century philosopher known for advancing the scientific method, was probably the first philosopher of the modern era to use pre-Socratic axioms extensively in his texts. He criticized the pre-Socratic theory of knowledge by Xenophanes and others, claiming that their deductive reasoning could not yield meaningful results—an opinion contemporary philosophy of science rejects. Bacon's fondness for the pre-Socratics, especially Democritus' atomist theory, might have been because of his anti-Aristotelianism.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Friedrich Nietzsche admired the pre-Socratics deeply, calling them "tyrants of the spirit" to mark their antithesis and his preference against Socrates and his successors. Nietzsche also weaponized pre-Socratic antiteleology, coupled with the materialism exemplified by Democritus, for his attack on Christianity and its morals. Nietzsche saw the pre-Socratics as the first ancestors of contemporary science—linking Empedocles to Darwinism and Heraclitus to physicist Helmholtz. According to his narrative, limned in many of his books, the pre-Socratic era was the glorious era of Greece, while the so-called Golden Age that followed was an age of decay, according to Nietzsche. Nietzsche incorporated the pre-Socratics in his Apollonian and Dionysian dialectics, with them representing the creative Dionysian aspect of the duo.


title: Pre-Socratic philosophy

text: Martin Heidegger found the roots of his phenomenology and later thinking of Things and the Fourfold in the pre-Socratics, considering Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus as the original thinkers on being, which he identified in their work as "physis" [φύσις] (emergence, contrasted against κρύπτεσθαι, kryptesthai, in Heraclitus’ Fragment 123) or "aletheia" [αλήθεια] (truth as unconcealment).


title: Chronograph

text: A chronograph is a specific type of watch that is used as a stopwatch combined with a display watch. A basic chronograph has an independent sweep second hand and a minute sub-dial; it can be started, stopped, and returned to zero by successive pressure on the stem. More complex chronographs use additional complications and can have multiple sub-dials to measure seconds, minutes, hours and even fractions of a second. In addition, many modern chronographs use moveable bezels as tachymeters for rapid calculations of speed or distance. Louis Moinet invented the chronograph in 1816 for use in tracking astronomical objects. Chronographs were also used heavily in artillery fire in the mid to late 1800s. More modern uses of chronographs involve aircraft piloting, auto racing, diving and submarine maneuvering.


title: Chronograph

text: Since the 1980s, the term "chronograph" has also been applied to all digital watches that incorporate a stopwatch function.


title: Chronograph

text: The term "chronograph" comes from the Greek ( 'time recording'), from ( 'time') and ( 'to write'). Early versions of the chronograph are the only ones that actually used any "writing": marking the dial with a small pen attached to the index so that the length of the pen mark would indicate how much time had elapsed.


title: Chronograph

text: The first modern chronograph was invented by Louis Moinet in 1816, solely for working with astronomical equipment. It was Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec who developed the first marketed chronograph at the behest of King Louis XVIII in 1821. The King greatly enjoyed watching horse races, but wanted to know exactly how long each race lasted, so Rieussec was commissioned to invent a contraption that would do the job: as a result he developed the first ever commercialized chronograph. Rieussec was considered the inventor of the chronograph until the Louis Moinet pocket chronograph discovery in 2013 when history was rewritten. In addition to inventing the chronograph, Louis Moinet is also the father of High Frequency. In 1816, his Compteur de Tierces timepiece beat at a rhythm of 216,000 vibrations per hour (30 Hz). This frequency record stood for exactly one century, before eventually being broken in 1916 – after which standard chronometer frequencies returned to present-day levels (generally 4-5 Hz). Still in perfect working order, the Compteur de Tierces is preserved at Ateliers Louis Moinet.


title: Chronograph

text: In 1915, Gaston Breitling produced the first chronograph with a central seconds hand and a 30-minute counter. Later, in 1923, Gaston Breitling introduced the first chronograph with a separate pusher at 2 o'clock. In 1934 Willy Breitling further developed the concept of the chronograph with the addition of the second pusher at 4 o'clock. Since then the 3-pusher chronograph design has been adopted by the entire industry.


title: Chronograph

text: In 1844 Adolphe Nicole's updated version of the chronograph was the first to include a re-setting feature which now allowed successive measurements, unlike the constantly moving needle in the original chronograph.


title: Chronograph

text: In the early part of the 20th century, many chronographs were sold with fixed bezels marked in order to function as a tachymeter. In 1958 the watch company Heuer introduced a model with a rotating bezel tachymeter for more complex calculations.


title: Chronograph

text: Chronographs were very popular with aviators as they allowed them to make rapid calculations and conduct precise timing. The demand for chronographs grew along with the aviation industry in the early part of the 20th century. As the US exploration of outer space initially involved only test pilots, by order of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, chronographs were on the wrists of many early astronauts. Chronograph usage followed a similar trajectory for many fields that involve very precise and/or repeated timing around increasingly more complicated high performance machinery, automobile racing and naval submarine navigation being two examples. As different uses for the chronograph were discovered, the industry responded with different models introducing such features as the flyback (where the second hand could be rapidly reset to zero), minute and hour timers, Rattrapante (or multiple second hands one of which can be stopped and started independently) and waterproof models for divers and swimmers.


title: Chronograph

text: Although self winding watches and clockwork have been around since the late 1700s, the automatic (self winding) chronograph was not invented until the late 1960s. In 1969, the watch companies Heuer, Breitling, Hamilton, and movement specialist Dubois Dépraz, developed the first automatic chronograph in partnership. They developed this technology secretly in an effort to prevent other watchmaking houses from releasing an automatic chronograph first, namely their competition Zenith and Seiko. It was in Geneva and in New York that this partnership shared the first automatic chronograph with the world on March 3, 1969. These first automatic chronographs were labelled "Chrono-matic".


title: Chronograph

text: Many companies sell their own styles of chronographs. While today most chronographs are in the form of wristwatches, in the early 20th century pocket chronographs were very popular.


title: Chronograph

text: The term chronograph is often confused with the term chronometer. Where "Chronograph" refers to the function of a watch, chronometer is a measure of how well a given mechanical timepiece performs: in order to be labeled a chronometer the timepiece must be certified by the COSC, the official Swiss Chronometer testing institute, after undergoing a series of rigorous tests for robustness, accuracy and precision under adverse conditions (though these requirements fall far short of the accuracy achieved by even the cheapest modern quartz watch). A simple mechanical watch, without the stopwatch functionality, can be certified a chronometer, as can a clock, for example a ship's clock be used for navigation. The terms are not mutually exclusive either, for instance the Omega Seamaster 300M Chronograph GMT Co-Axial is also a COSC certified chronometer


title: Chronograph

text: Originally the term chronograph was mainly used in connection with artillery and the velocity of missiles. The Chronograph's main function is to allow a comparison of observation between a time base and, before the electronic stopwatch was invented, a permanent recording of the observer's findings. For example, one of the first applications of the chronograph was to record the time elapsed during horse races.


title: Chronograph

text: Some more important uses of the chronograph include the Langley Chronograph, which is used by the US Navy to record, calculate, and analyse data given off by aeroplane launching catapults. Another famous usage of the chronograph was during all of NASA's Apollo missions to the moon, each astronaut was equipped with a fully functioning chronograph, the Omega Speedmaster. Chronographs are routinely used to record heart beats within hospitals, calculate speed and/or distance on athletic fields, or even as simple timers in kitchen.


title: Chronograph

text: Chronographs can be extremely complicated devices, but they all have the basic function of telling time, as they are watches, and of displaying elapsed time. Rieussec's chronograph was fairly simple. It was composed of two faces, a top and bottom face. The bottom face held a pool of ink, while the upper had a pen-like needle attached to it. When activated, the upper face pushed down on the lower face, while revolving around a central axis, which pulled the needle. This dragged the ink, in a circular fashion, recording the time elapsed by the line of ink that the motion created. There was room left for improvement, because Rieussec's chronograph was not easily ready for multiple uses.


title: Chronograph

text: This paved the way for the hundreds of patents that have been handed out to people for updating and upgrading this device. Automatic, non-digital chronographs do not require a battery, because the arm or wrist of the wearer creates kinetic energy, which results in the total energy source needed for this device to work. Throughout the day, while the wearer of the watch is walking, the swinging motion of his arm forces a semicircular rotor to turn on a pivot within the watch. The rotor is attached to a ratchet that winds the mainspring in the watch, so that it is ready for use at all times.


title: Chronograph

text: The modern day chronograph works by pushing a start button, normally located at the two o'clock position, to begin recording time, and by pushing the same button to stop the recording. When the button is pushed to start the recording, a series of three (in more complicated and more precise chronographs there are more wheels) train wheels start turning. The smallest has a revolution time of one second, the next sixty seconds, and the final one has a revolution time of sixty minutes. The three train wheels interact with one another and record how long it has been since the start button has been activated.


title: Chronograph

text: In addition to the start button, it also features a reset button normally located at the four o'clock position. When the reset button is pushed the chronograph hand will reset back to zero.


title: Chronograph

text: Tachymeter bezels are a complication that allows rapid calculations of speed or distance. Rotating bezels allow for more complex calculations or repeated calculations without requiring a reset of the timer.


title: Chronograph

text: The original chronographs that Rieussec invented were called tape chronographs. They consisted of a tape that was constantly being dragged along at a controlled speed. When activated, a pen would be pushed onto the tape and begin recording until deactivated.


title: Chronograph

text: Specialized chronographs are used by deep sea and scuba divers. While basic functionality is the same as other chronographs, diving models have longer and more practical straps to wear over equipment, are made to be waterproof to deeper depths, have more rounded corners to prevent catching and luminous dials for reading in the murky depths. Also divers chronographs are fitted with large bezels that have at least one luminous marking: at the start of a dive the bezel is rotated to place the marking at the extent of time allowed by the air supply giving the ability to very quickly determine how much time remains for safe diving. Surface supplied divers can use the same to make quick calculations of distance traveled over time.


title: Chronograph

text: Metered bezels: Many chronographs have a bezel, that is either fixed or can rotate, around the outside of the dial that is marked to specific scales to allow rapid calculations. While any wristwatch can have a bezel, the chronograph stop start feature, as well as the rotation of the bezel, allows more complex calculations or repeated measurements for a series of calculations. The most popular meter is for Tachymeter readings: a simple scale that allows rapid calculations of speed. Other bezels feature Telemeter scale, for distance. The watchmaking company Breitling offers a model with a rotating bezel, in conjunction with another, fixed, meter on the dial, scaled for use as a slide rule for more complex calculations.


title: Chronograph

text: Flyback chronographs have a timing hand that can be rapidly reset, or "flyback", to zero. Ordinarily the sweep second hand is stopped to record the time and started again at that spot on the dial, or reset by spinning the second hand all the way to zero again, clockwise. The flyback allows a reading and a quick reset—a counterclockwise flyback—for the next measurement to start at zero.


title: Chronograph

text: A "rattrapante", sometimes called a "double chronograph", has multiple second hands, at least one of which can be stopped and started independently. When not activated, the second hands travel together, one under the other, to appear as just one second hand.


title: Chronograph

text: A "tourbillon", although not strictly limited to chronographs, is an escapement set in a cage and placed in a rotating balance in order to minimize the effects of gravity on the escapement and increase precision. Because chronograph escapements are generally larger and connect with more complications, a tourbillion in a chronograph will differ from a tourbillion in a more simple timepiece.


title: Chronograph

text: Other types of modern-day chronographs are the "automatic chronograph" and the "digital chronograph". The automatic chronograph depends solely on kinetic energy as its power source, while the digital chronograph is much like the common stopwatch and uses a battery to gain power, as well as quartz for timing.


title: Chronograph

text: Other, more specific, types of chronographs include split second chronographs, tide chronographs, and asthometer chronographs. Each of these chronographs has an added feature that sets them apart.


title: Chronograph

text: The "telemeter chronograph" allows the user to approximately measure the distance to an event that can be both seen and heard (e.g. a lightning bolt or a torpedo strike) using the speed of sound. The user starts the chronograph (stopwatch) at the instant the event is seen, and stops timing at the instant the event is heard. The seconds hand will point to the distance measured on a scale, usually around the edge of the face. The scale can be defined in any unit of distance, but miles or kilometers are most practical and commonplace.


title: Tatra (company)

text: Tatra is a Czech vehicle manufacturer from Kopřivnice. It is owned by the "Tatra Trucks" company, and it is the third oldest company in the world producing cars with an unbroken history. The company was founded in 1850 as "Ignatz Schustala & Cie", in 1890 renamed in German "Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft" when it became a wagon and carriage manufacturer. In 1897, Tatra produced the first motor car in central Europe, the Präsident automobile. In 1918, it changed its name to "Kopřivnická vozovka a.s.", and in 1919 it changed from the Nesselsdorfer marque to the "Tatra" badge, named after the nearby Tatra Mountains on the Czechoslovak-Polish border (now on the Polish-Slovak border).


title: Tatra (company)

text: During World War II Tatra was instrumental in the production of trucks and tank engines for the German war effort. Production of passenger cars ceased in 1999, but the company still produces a range of primarily all-wheel-drive trucks, from 4×4 to 18×18. The brand is also known for the Czech truck racer Karel Loprais: in 1988–2001 he won the off-road race Dakar Rally six times with a Tatra 815.


title: Tatra (company)

text: Ignaz Schustala (1822–1891), founder of the company ""Ignatz Schustala & Comp"" in Kopřivnice, started the production of horse-drawn vehicles in 1850. In 1891 it branched out into railroad car manufacture, the company was renamed ""Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau-Fabriksgesellschaft"", and it employed Hugo Fischer von Röslerstamm as technical director in 1890. After the death of Schustala, von Röslerstamm took over running the company and in 1897 he bought a Benz automobile. Using this for inspiration, the company made its first car, the Präsident, under the direction of engineers Hans Ledwinka and Edmund Rumpler, which was exhibited in 1897 in Vienna. Orders were obtained for more cars, and until 1900, nine improved cars based on Präsident were made.


title: Tatra (company)

text: The first car to be totally designed by Ledwinka came in 1900 with the Type A with rear-mounted 2714 cc engine and top speed of , 22 units were built. This was followed by the Type B with central engine in 1902 but then Ledwinka left the company to concentrate on steam engine development. He returned in 1905 and designed a completely new car, the Type S with 3308 cc 4-cylinder engine. Production was badly hit in 1912 with a 23-week strike and Hugo Fischer von Röslerstamm left the company.


title: Tatra (company)

text: In 1921 the company was renamed to ""Kopřivnická vozovka"", and in 1919 the name Tatra was given to the car range. Leopold Pasching took over control and in 1921 Hans Ledwinka returned again to develop the Tatra 11. The new car, launched in 1923, featured a rigid backbone tube with swinging semi-axles at the rear giving independent suspension. The engine, front-mounted, was an air-cooled two-cylinder unit of 1056 cc. In 1924 the company was renamed to ""Závody Tatra"".


title: Tatra (company)

text: The Tatra 11 was replaced in 1926 by the similar Tatra 12 which had four-wheel brakes. A further development was the 1926 Tatra 17 with a 1,930 cc water-cooled six-cylinder engine and fully independent suspension. In 1927 the company was renamed ""Ringhoffer-Tatra"".


title: Tatra (company)

text: Tatra's specialty was luxury cars using the most recent technology, going from air-cooled flat-twins to fours and sixes, culminating (briefly) with the OHC 6-litre V12 in 1931. In the 1930s, under the supervision of Austrian engineer Hans Ledwinka, his son Erich and German engineer Erich Übelacker, and protected by high tariffs and absence of foreign assemblers, Tatra began building advanced, streamlined cars after obtaining licences from Paul Jaray, which started in 1934 with the large Tatra 77, the world's first production aerodynamic car. The average drag coefficient of a 1:5 model of the fastback Tatra 77 was recorded as 0.2455. It featured (as did almost all subsequent big Tatras) a rear-mounted, air-cooled V8 engine.


title: Tatra (company)

text: Both Adolf Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche were influenced by the Tatras. Hitler was a keen automotive enthusiast, and had ridden in Tatras during political tours of Czechoslovakia. He had also dined numerous times with Ledwinka. After one of these dinners Hitler remarked to Porsche, "This is the car for my roads". From 1933 onwards, Ledwinka and Porsche met regularly to discuss their designs, and Porsche admitted "Well, sometimes I looked over his shoulder and sometimes he looked over mine" while designing the Volkswagen. There is no doubt that the Beetle bore a striking resemblance to the Tatras, particularly the Tatra V570. The Tatra 97 of 1936 had a rear-located, rear-wheel drive, air-cooled four-cylinder boxer engine accommodating four passengers and providing luggage storage under the front bonnet and behind the rear seat. Another similarity between this Tatra and the Beetle is the central structural tunnel. Tatra launched a lawsuit against Volkswagen for patent infringement, but this was stopped when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. At the same time, Tatra was forced to stop producing the T97. The matter was re-opened after World War II and in 1965 Volkswagen paid the Ringhoffer family in an out of court settlement.


title: Tatra (company)

text: Tatra and Volkswagen's body design were preceded by similar designs of Hungarian automotive engineer Bela Barenyi, whose sketches resembling the Volkswagen Beetle date back to the 1925.


title: Tatra (company)

text: After the 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, Tatras were kept in production, largely because Germans liked the cars. Many German officers died in car accidents caused by driving the heavy, rear-engined Tatras faster around corners than they could handle. At the time, as an anecdote, Tatra became known as the 'Czech Secret Weapon' for the scores of officers who died behind the wheel; at one point official orders were issued forbidding German officers from driving Tatras.


title: Tatra (company)

text: The factory was nationalised in 1945 almost three years before the Communist Party came to power and in January 1946 was renamed "Tatra Národní Podnik". Although production of prewar models continued, a new model, the Tatra 600 Tatraplan was designed—the name celebrating the new Communist planned economy and the aeroplane inspiration (Colloq. Czech: aeroplán). It went into production in 1948. In 1951, the state planning department decided that the Tatraplan should henceforth be built at the Škoda plant in Mladá Boleslav, leaving Tatra free to concentrate on trucks, buses and railway equipment.


title: Tatra (company)

text: In 1953, amid much dissatisfaction among Communist party leaders with the poor-quality official cars imported from Russia, Tatra was again given permission to produce a luxury car, the Tatra 603. Much like Tatra's prewar cars, it was driven by a rear-mounted, air-cooled V8 and had the company's trademark aerodynamic styling. The Tatra 603 initially featured three headlights and the first prototypes had a central rear stabilising fin, though this feature was lost on production vehicles. It was also fitted with almost American-style thick chrome bumpers with bullets (a.k.a. Dagmar bumpers). Almost entirely hand-built, Tatras were not available for normal citizens as they were not permitted to buy them. The cars were reserved for the Communist Party elite and industrial officials, as well as being exported to most other communist nations as official state cars. Notably, Cuban President Fidel Castro had a white Tatra 603, custom-fitted with air conditioning.


title: Tatra (company)

text: Tatra 603s were built until 1975, a twenty-year reign as one of communism's finest cars. Numerous improvements were made during its production run, although not all vehicles built were actually new but rather reconditioned. In exchange for a newer model year car, the older vehicle was returned to the factory. There, it was upgraded to current model year specifications, refinished, and sent out again as a putatively new vehicle to replace another older T603. This makes it difficult to trace the history of surviving vehicles.


title: Tatra (company)

text: In 1968 a replacement was developed: the Tatra 613. It was styled by the Italian styling house of Vignale and was a more modern, less rounded shape. It was not until 1973 that the car went into production, and volume production did not begin until the following year. Although the layout remained the same, the body was all new, as was the engine, which was equipped with four overhead camshafts, a higher capacity motor (3495 cc) and an output close to . In addition, it had been moved somewhat forward for improved balance. These cars were built in five series and went through several modifications until production ceased in 1996. Over 11,000 cars were built, and sales slowed to a trickle of just a few dozen per year towards the end of production as Tatras began to seem more and more outdated.


title: Tatra (company)

text: The Tatra 700 was a large luxury car released in 1996 by Tatra. It was essentially a heavily restyled version of the Tatra 613 model it replaced, with updated body panels and detailing. The T700 was offered as both a saloon and coupé with either a 3.5 or 4.4 litre 90° air-cooled V8 petrol engine.


title: Tatra (company)

text: The model was neither successful nor produced in large numbers, with a total of 69–72 cars manufactured. The T700 was the last passenger car made by Tatra with production halting in 1999. At this point, Tatra abandoned automobile manufacturing in order to concentrate on truck design and manufacture.


title: Tatra (company)

text: The Tatra MTX V8 was the fastest Czech car of all time. Production started in 1991 in Kopřivnice. It has a Tatra 623 V8 engine with inlet manifold injection producing 225 kW at 6500 rpm. It accelerates from 0– in 5.6 seconds. The top speed is . The Czech designer Václav Král designed this vehicle, with only five ever produced.