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Macluawn t1_j281e7f wrote

Reply to comment by Obvious_Swimming3227 in Before Newton, how did people explain falling apples? by maugustus

> objects seeking out their natural resting place

Isn’t this what gravity is anyway?

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BlueRajasmyk2 t1_j286vci wrote

IIRC the Aristotle viewpoint was something like, all things are pulled towards the center of the universe, with different elements floating on top of others in the order: earth < water < air < fire (sun) < aether (cosmos).

If you're a video gamer, I highly recommend checking out Odyssey - The Story of Science, an educational game which goes into detail about the "what"s and "why"s of what people believed about the cosmos before modern times, and how each of those theories was disproven.

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clicheguevara8 t1_j28p07g wrote

Not really pulled, more like, each element has its natural place, and it’s essence is to find its proper place. There was no force to do the pulling or floating, it was instead an essential property of a the element itself to organize in this way.

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Obvious_Swimming3227 t1_j281tv7 wrote

Best understanding of gravity that exists today is it's a warping of space and time around a massive object that causes objects moving around it to deviate from straight line motion when seen from an observer far away. Not sure how you could massage that into an Aristotelian explanation. I'm also not an expert of Aristotelian physics, which is why I left it at that, but one of the consequences I understand from it was that heavier objects should fall faster than lighter ones, which is the thing Galileo disproved.

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a-synuclein t1_j29sax8 wrote

That's not Newton's gravity, that's Einstein's relativity. Newton's simply posited that massive objects pulled things to them, not that they warped space-time.

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tawzerozero t1_j282m2r wrote

Well, not just gravity but everything seems to seek its lowest energy state.

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Verlepte t1_j28vubn wrote

Is this why I just want to stay in bed all day?

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