Next: The motion according to Up: Aristotle and Ptolemy Previous: Aristotle and Ptolemy Aristotelian Cosmology Aristotle's cosmological work On The Heavens is the most influential treatise of its kind in the history of humanity. It was accepted for more that 18 centuries from its inception (around 350 B.C.) until the works of Copernicus in the early 1500s. In this work Aristotle discussed the general nature of the cosmos and certain properties of individual bodies. Aristotle believed that all bodies are made up of four elements: earth, water, air and fire (see Fig. These elements naturally move up or down, fire being the lightest and earth the heaviest . A composite object will have the features of the element which dominates; most things are of this sort. But since the elements in, for example, a worm, are not where they belong (the fiery part is too low being bound by the earth part, which is a bit too high), then the worm is imperfect. All things on earth are thus imperfect. The idea that all bodies | |
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