The Cassini-Huygens spaceprobe is named after Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

lived 546 BCE

Said the Earth is round (and 300 years later, Aristarchos successfully calculated its circumference). Rejected Thales' idea that the "ur-substance" was water because "everything would have converged into water".

Had an idea of evolution, that humans must have come from fish or some such (correct!). 2200 years later, characters such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin fleshed it out, though they may not have known of Anaximander.

Said to be the first person to draw a map (let that sink in for a moment). I doubt it's literally true, but imagine having invented maps. Next time you open the map on your phone, take a moment to thank Anaximander.

Liked practical research, unlike the later Greeks.

His student Anaximenes, who said the earth was a disk, was liked more during antiquity.

A doctor who wrote much during the Islamic Golden Age. Known in Western sources as "Avicenna".

20 years old when he disappeared into the woods. 47 years old in 2013 when he was caught.

• He slept in an unheated tent, in an area which falls to -20 degrees in the winter.
• He had contact with a single person, once, a hiker in the 1990s.
• He never made a phone call
• He never drove a car
• He never spent money (1000+ burglaries provided food)
• He never sent an email or saw the Internet

When he was asked about Thoreau, Knight dismissed him with a single word "dilettante" (dabbler, amateur, nonprofessional).

At the very end of each of our visits, I'd always asked him the same question. An essential question: Why did he disappear? He never had a satisfying answer. "I don't have a reason." "I can't explain why." "Give me more time to think about it." "It's a mystery to me, too." Then he became annoyed "Why? That question bores me." But during our final visit, he was more reflective. Isn't everybody, he said, seeking the same thing in life? Aren't we all looking for contentment? He was never happy in his youth–not in high school, not with a job, not being around other people. Then he discovered his camp in the woods. "I found a place where I was content," he said. His own perfect spot. The only place in the world he felt at peace.

Read more: www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit