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Obvious_Swimming3227 t1_j27skmu wrote

There was for a long time the Aristotelian nonsense about objects seeking out their natural resting place, but, by the time of Newton, Galileo had dealt a pretty lethal blow to that. Probably the fairest answer is that we were at the beginning then of a modern scientific understanding of the world, and that a coherent model of what caused things to fall to the ground as we understand it now probably didn't really exist then. I could be wrong-- particularly with respect to the advances that were taking place outside of Europe-- but it seems like science before this period was largely about illustrating a beautiful, rational order ordained by God, rather than finding rigorous models that could explain natural phenomenon: Science was still a branch of philosophy. People like Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, etc, aren't giants simply because they corrected long-running misperceptions about things, but because they introduced a fundamental paradigm shift into how we think about the world and ask questions about it.

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kleft234 t1_j28feom wrote

They didn't have good math either. Newton (and others) made up calculus, but not just that.

Even the abstract notation of polynomials and equations, by using letters to represent variables, was kind of new in Newton's time. This was due to Viete, in XVI century, and I would guess it was one of most important inventions for math and science ever.

Imagine how it was to study equations by saying "the double of the square of a quantity plus three times the same quantity is equal to 5"

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Obvious_Swimming3227 t1_j28fndx wrote

I got into physics because of Einstein, but I'm pretty well convinced Newton now was the real boss. If he were here today, he'd still be making groundbreaking contributions. Also worth mentioning his eureka moment was not realizing gravity was responsible for apples falling to the ground, but realizing that one and the same thing could explain that, the orbits of planets and ocean tides. The popular picture we have of him doesn't do him any justice at all.

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The_Last_Y t1_j28s7no wrote

Newton wasn’t they only person working on Gravity. Robert Hooke (and others) developed a lot of the theoretical backing for Gravity. He just didn’t know Calculus so he couldn’t connect theory to observations. Imo, the popular picture of Newton is largely of his own design; he used his position of power to take credit for things like Calculus and Gravity and downplay those who help contribute.

Gravity like most discoveries wasn’t divined in a single moment by a single person but was dozens of astronomers, physicists, and mathematicians asking questions and pushing the boundaries of our understanding. Newton once said he was standing on the shoulders of giants because he couldn’t have made the discoveries he did without those before and around him.

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Obvious_Swimming3227 t1_j28sihd wrote

That's actually a fair point, and, I'll admit, I occasionally fall into the habit of believing in the light of a single genius still: That's pretty much never true. Thank you for the correction.

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Asymptote_X t1_j28zgn4 wrote

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Newton

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seriousnotshirley t1_j2909w1 wrote

Newton was the one who really pulled everything together in a fundamental way. Barrow (his advisor) developed a lot of Calculus as did Fermat and Descartes before him and Barrow suspected the fundamental theorem of Calculus but it was Newton who proved it (to the standards of the day) and that was the key to confidently solving differential equations. While the problems of differentiation and integration are what we think of as Calculus that's not really what it's about, it's really about solving differential equations and that's what Newton advanced and then applied to problems of physics of the day.

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Macluawn t1_j281e7f wrote

> 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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