Aristotle tried to base his physics on actual observations of the world, but due to inadequate observations and hidden assumptions, nearly all of it is wrong. He separated the cosmos into the terrestrial and celestial regions. In the terrestrial region, all matter is made of a mixture of the four Read more…
After Socrates’ death, his most devoted follower, Plato, founded his famous institution of higher learning, the Academy, inspired in part by the Pythagoreans. Upon challenging his colleagues to explain the motions of the planets in terms of perfect uniform circular motion, his former student Eudoxus invented the first geometric model Read more…
After the Persian wars, the center of Greek philosophy shifted from Ionia to Athens. The man to bring Ionian philosophy to Athens was Anaxagoras, who posited that the sun and moon are just rocks that can reflect light and cast shadows. Meanwhile, Philolaus the Pythagorean suggested that the earth moves. Read more…