Named for Parmenides of Elea, born around 515 B.C. and the founder of “Eleaticism“. From his lengthy poem On Nature, a hexametric work of which only a small part has been preserved, one learns that he considered the plurality of things as the appearance of only one eternal reality. Greek philosophers before him, such as Thales and Anaximenes {see planets  (6001) and  (6051), respectively}, tried to explain the physical world by means of sometimes very remarkable hypotheses. Parmenides, probably influenced by the skeptical Xenophanes {see planet  (6026)}, wanted to be absolutely certain about the theory he put forward. He therefore investigated the validity of theories, not by experiments, but by means of the logical soundness of laws and concepts that had been incorporated. (M 24919) _ _.