Thales (circa 600BC—roughly 50 years before Pythagoras, 200 years before Plato, and 300 years before Euclid) certainly knew and reasoned with the concept of a planar angle. Are there earlier historical references to angles in a mathematical sense? Or is the origin of the notion lost in the mists of antiquity?
Did the notion of "angle" originate with Thales?
Joseph O'Rourke
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