Hi, this is my second post about Ancient Greece and this one is about physics. Even though physics wasn't really studied, though philosophers like Aristotle would ask questions about the physical world such as what makes the planets move across the sky, why does water fall when flames don't, and why does a rock fall when smoke rises. He tried to explain this by saying that all matter is made of five elements called air, earth, water, fire, and aether; a substance of the heavens. The four elements air, earth, water, and fire were said to be the elements of the world and exchange with each other, while aether was an entirely different substance. Each element was said to have its own realm, for example: air's realm would be what we call today our atmosphere and earth's realm would be the ground. Aristotle presumed that all objects original state would be at rest, meaning all of these would be in balance and when an object would move it meant it was trying to find balance. For example rocks would fall because the earth realm is naturally down. Or water would flow down because it's Relm is natural below the earth. Or smoke rises because it's composed of both fire and air, and it is trying to reach the fire realm. Although Aristotle was famous for his work in logic, he never thought of finding a solution for all these problems using mathematics or logic. After Aristotle there was Archimedes who used logic and scientific principles to solve problems. He is best known for finding density and buoyancy by sitting in a bath tub. He also outlined that mathematical principles for the lever,defined the center of gravity, he used Ancient Greek geometry to find the equilibrium state of objects that would have been hard to find in modern physics.
http://physics.about.com/od/physicshistory/a/GreekPhysics_3.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/458717/physical-science/32540/Greek-physics
https://explorable.com/ancient-physics
http://physics.about.com/od/physicshistory/a/GreekPhysics_3.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/458717/physical-science/32540/Greek-physics
https://explorable.com/ancient-physics