“Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (0. 500—428 BC) postulated another element called the aether, which was in constant rotation and carried with it the celestial bodies. He also believed that there was a directing intelligence in nature that he called Nous which gives order to what otherwise would be a chaotic universe. By Nous he meant literally "the Mind of the Cosmos"… Anaxagoras was the last of the Ionian physicists.”

—  John Freely

Source: Before Galileo, The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (2012), p. 287

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John Freely 8
American physicist 1926–2017

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