How Did Pre-Modern People Understand Gravity?

[@watchyourlanguage3870]

My main thought at the beginning when you were talking about fire and air rising, and the sun and stars being made of fire and whatnot, was “Huh this actually makes more sense than I thought it would” (I know it’s not true, but like let’s be real, we all thought the sun was made of fire as kids)

[@mikebaker2436]

Forgive the ancients for not using their nuclear reactors as a better metaphor for what the sun does. 😅

[@DrDeuteron]

idk, I consider the Sun to be made of fire, and I've had dinner with Hans Bethe.

[@brianedwards7142]

History is full of people who were at the top of the heap and made whole careers out of being wrong but for good reasons. Logic is a tool that can hit you in the thumb sometimes.

[@Wishbone1977]

@@brianedwards7142 Kettering's Law: Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.

[@antman7673]

I had a solar system book, very early. -It does look like a fireball.

[@KitagumaIgen]

Once upon a time in university I took a great course in history of technology/technique, and there it was explained that sure the Aristotelian speculations were propagated in scholastic circles, but the working of gravity and classical mechanics were way better understood in the professions that actually used classical mechanics: architects, civil engineers, shipbuilders and military engineers - with one notable example that the working of ballistic trajectories were well understood already in Roman times.

[@melgross]

Yes. It’s interesting that we can often use what we don’t understand.

[@johnoglesby-vw7ck]

Competence before comprehension...

[@ivanclark2275]

I read recently that the invention of gunpowder artillery stimulated the invention of new techniques for calculating trajectories. Interestingly though, the math quickly surpassed the manufacturing abilities of gun makers, so for a long time in the 16th century, the knowledge of how to accurately aim guns over long distances far outstripped the abilities of any gun.

[@KitagumaIgen]

@@johnoglesby-vw7ck Yeah, but in this historical context it was a very sad condemnation of the scholastics hanging on to the obviously nonsense of the Aristotelian mechanics.

[@johnoglesby-vw7ck]

@@KitagumaIgen Gotcha, and understood... my pondering lately is more cognitive, hence that vague c9

[@JKTCGMV13]

Why can’t conspiracy theories be something cool like the 4 spheres of elements

[@samuelloomis9714]

Perhaps that would be considered too outlandish and mystical compared to deliberately ignoring or circumventing a few key details in modern understandings.

[@MrBeiragua]

I guess because the people who wrote these cool theories in the past were actually smart people, trying to use their brain to the best of their ability and general knowledge of their era to explain a real phenomenon. People like them today will learn modern science and agree with it, and then focus on the fringes. Modern conspiracy theorists, by exclusion, are not the brightest of us, and can't really imagine fun and interesting ways to explain stuff.

[@thatthatguy1]

The Illuminati are concealing the truth of the luminiferous aether from us. My evidence of this is that the luminiferous aether is a beautiful idea and a really great word that deserves to be correct.

[@bipeur_scp]

There is some cool stuff, one that i like is a dlc of flat earth. The ICE wall. Basically it's antartica wich is a wall with only 2 door who leed to a lot of New continents.

[@fgoindarkg]

​@@MrBeiragua Psychological studies show that conspiracy deniers are the ones with the intellectual deficit. Simply believing everything spoon fed to you by corporate media does not pass for intelligence with those of us who can think for ourselves. Your self serving superiority is of no use to anyone, least of all yourself, ironically.

[@somanken]

what I love about these older theories is that while they do get some elements hilariously wrong compared to our understanding there are a lot of theories and qualities that they get so close to what we understand now. The elements being a big one, dividing reality into earth, wind, water and fire is not far from solid, liquid, gas and plasma, and while one obviously led to the other its fun to hear other theories they have that still held some logic even if they do go off on some pretty wild tangents.

[@ThePenisMan]

It reminded me more of ACTUAL elements, in which their intrinsic heaviness kinda gets converted to their atomic weight, and the more dense something is of the same volume the heavier it is, and from that point we aren’t actually too far off from where we came Things like that is why dumb questions like “why does gravity exist” are important questions

[@R.B.]

That struck me too. I thought it was actually a pretty sensible explanation. Even if it wasn't the fully developed reasoning, it is almost as fully developed as we have today in that we can describe the effect and predict gravity, but we still don't have a carrier like gravitons. Even if we agree that curvature of space-time is the root cause, such as why two falling objects will accelerate towards each other as they fall, in their own inertial frame of reference, they will be drawn together with increasing velocity, somewhat akin to how two bodies of mass would be drawn together -- or exactly. We can describe this as the field, but is that any different than the ether? Earth, water, air, and fire seem to match their observations and do so in an intelligent way. What I'm more curious about is how biomass fits into that view of the world. How are plants and animals created from those elements? The act of burning wood produces smoke (air), and fire, so I guess plants and trees must be a combination of those, and animals with their blood (water) must be a combination of water and earth I guess? At least gravity in these terms seems to bring some order to the chaos.

[@arthurcosta4643]

That is why i love to look to the explanations ancient humans gave to the universe. They gave perfectcly logical responses, that were yet incorrect. It makes me think how much of our current theories, that feel right and have logic by their side, will be proven wrong by humans in the future with a method superior to our current scientific one.

[@yoyoibo]

@@arthurcosta4643 There won’t be any new discovery that’ll disprove any of the established scientific theories… The scientific method is already essentially trying to prove yourself wrong until you’re no longer able to do so. Everything we “know” to be scientifically correct is 99.9% true.. and the stuff we *could* be wrong about, we admit we don’t fully understand. Einstein’s Relativity didn’t make Newton’s theory on gravity wrong.. it just expanded on it. Quantum Physics didn’t suddenly make all of Chemistry irrelevant.. it just provided a deeper insight into it’s mechanics.

[@KuK137]

@@R.B. No they don't. Cold smoke moves down, air doesn't move up as can be verified by climbing mountain and see there is less and less of it as you go up, water (vapor) somehow moves up when you heat it - their explanation was nonsense if you took more than 5 seconds to look at it, they just ignored all the evidence to the contrary...

[@jeeling]

The trifecta of a great KZbin find for me: 1. An interesting question 2. that I don’t already know the answer to 3. that is answered in a complete and satisfying way Well done!

[@jonothanthrace1530]

4. Read by somebody who isn't just doing a version of the Jungle Cruise cadence.

[@builderdog3875]

This is one sentence

[@_KT0]

what i really like about the elements is that all of them are different matter states

[@hebercluff1665]

I wonder what the element for Bose-Einstein condensate would be.

[@brainzpvz2592]

@@hebercluff1665 Aether?

[@hebercluff1665]

@@brainzpvz2592 in order of hot to cold, Bose-Einstein condensate is colder than "earth" / solids. If we translate this to the Greek elements, it would be a sphere even lower than earth. Aether was supposed to be higher fire / plasma. Oh well. Aether is probably the best we're going to get.

[@juliavixen176]

Depending on what really counts for something to be a "state of matter", there are more than four, and I wonder if we just say that there's three or four because of that ancient historical theory of matter... Like how there are only five senses, five tastes on the tongue, seven colors in the rainbow, because there are seven planets... you know, all those mystical single digit numbers. Is superconductivity a state of matter? Is crystalline structure? Is the triple point a state of matter? Is a colloid a state of matter? What is butter, a solid or liquid? At eight billion degrees centigrade, the weak force and electromagnetic force symmetry becomes 'unbroken' so weak bosons have infinite range; is this a state of matter? If you're not familiar with beta decay, imagine a form of light which is electrically charged and transforms quarks and electrons into each other when it shines on them. Is a quark-plasma condensate a state of matter? Does something need inertia to be "matter"?

[@NoobsDeSroobs]

Holy shit. A clear title, clear presentation without theatre or filler. A rare treat indeed. As the cherry on top he adds a proper description that is not just a copy paste of links and promotion of their own stuff. Subbed!

[@josepheridu3322]

I find it interesting that often we assume people in the past did not question or did not have diverse ideas about the nature of things, that they just believed what they were told. Sure, maybe that was true for most people, but academically there was a diversity of views and arguments. S lot of this reasoning was proven faulty, but it made sense in the context of the era and their intuition.

[@AverageAlien]

We believe what we are told, lol. How many of us actually checked Einsteins equations ourselves?

[@josepheridu3322]

@@AverageAlien Totally. If we are put 500 years ago, would we be able to discover electricity or prove it to them?

[@AverageAlien]

@@josepheridu3322 no 99% of people don't even know how a battery works

[@yorckyorck.scholtz7805]

So basically Just Like today? Who knew? /s But seriously, it's Just Natural given that we are essentially still the Same species we were 5000 years ago... Just slightly more advanced by stumbling 3 steps Forward and 2 steps back

[@josepheridu3322]

@@yorckyorck.scholtz7805 True, but it is quite sad that people are so arrogant today as "we know better know" when in fact they don't know much. They know someone else knows and build stuff, but they are pretty ignorant. At least people in the past had basic skills even to survive on the wild, we don't. Not saying living in the past was better, it wasn't, but feeling arrogant or superior to them is such an immature attitude.

[@jamesbusald7097]

The samething that makes it move downward is the samething that makes it feel heavy.

[@ArkadiBolschek]

It stands to reason!

[@MantasVEVO]

Not true. Even in zero gravity objects have mass. They do not weigh anything, but they have mass and it is harder to move a massive object than a less massive object even in space.

[@ShortKingofKings]

​@@MantasVEVOThats not entirely true either, theres no friction in most places with no gravity (technically theres gravity everywhere). Pushing a large "massive" object is actually just gravity disguising itself yet again, even in space, it's simply you trying to exert yourself against the gravity of the object itself and your own relative gravity. Its way, way easier for example to launch a rocket off the moon than it is to launch one from earth, you barely need a fraction of the fuel to get into orbit. Because indeed, OP is correct in an ooga booga caveman kinda way. obviously there's the issue of you going flying in fhe other direction when you push something however, thus in space, with nothing around, it would feel as if you had been the one pushed away, and the object remained static in a relativity standpoint. In a special relaticistic standpoint however.... Well its complicated 🤣 not enough hours in the day

[@hellegennes]

I am thankful that the algorithm suggested this video. You are a delight. Keep up the good work!

[@guyedwards22]

Just stumbled across this gem of a channel and have been binging its contents. Please keep this up if it's something you like doing, your presentation and speaking skills make these videos very easy to watch and learn from. Super interesting material you've obviously worked hard to curate.

[@studiumhistoriae]

Thanks! This means a lot to me. And don't worry, I love doing this and plan on continuing for a long time still

[@blademasterzero]

A lot of people like to laugh at older scholars for getting things wrong but it’s really telling that these ancient scholars are likely still more intelligent then their modern day critics

[@jan_kulawa]

Very glad to have been recommended this channel. Cheers from Brazil.

[@Stroheim333]

You almost ignore Descartes, and your short description of his theory is almost totally wrong. His gravitational theory was mathematically sound and in fact the big contender to Newton's back in the day (the geodesic missions to Lapland and Ecuador, 1736-37: measuring the shape of the earth to determine if Descartes or Newton was right). Look up the details -- it is fascinating!

[@studiumhistoriae]

Apologies. I skipped over him quickly because the video was focused on Ancient and Medieval views. I just wanted to acknowledge that Newton and Kepler weren't the only ones thinking about gravity and motion in the early modern period but hadn't planned on going into it much further

[@alvedonaren]

What was Descartes theory of gravity actually like?

[@Stroheim333]

​@@alvedonaren It is a slightly complex story. Firstly, Descartes threw away everything that the ancient philosophers had said (except Democrite and the Atomists, which he somewhat appreciated and was inspired by). Secondly, he thought that the whole universe originally was a solid, rock-like mass without characteristics, pure matter. The Supreme Being inplanted motion in this pure, solid matter, which cracked into particles of different sizes and shapes. The particles continue to grind against each other endlessly, which is why they continue to change size and shape, creating "whirlpools" that catch bigger chunks of matter. The smallest and finest matter is vacuum, and gravitation is simply "whirlpools" of vacuum particles. In theory and mathematically, this works, but the predictions it makes about gravitation's manifestations don't hold. Newton predicted that the Earth was flattened at the poles, which turned out to be correct, Descartes predicted that the Earth was pointy at the poles.

[@Stroheim333]

I love Descartes. He was wrong, but he was wonderfully wrong. And his cosmology is an early attempt at a scientific Theory Of Everything. For him, only matter and motion existed, and everything we experience in the universe is made of matter particles in different states of motion and shapes: light is made of very small, very fast-moving particles; fire is almost the same kind of particle, but slightly bigger and not that fast-moving; and the atmosphere is made of rather heavy particles that move slowly, but they are not as heavy and slow-moving as the particles in water or rocks.

[@piyo744]

I'd also talk about the equine theory of gravity. You seem to be putting Descartes before the horse.

[@ricardoludwig4787]

This was very enlightening! It's easy to assume that people of the past were dumb because they didn't know things we all know, but they almost always came to reasonable conclusions with the information they had access to, and seeing that evolve as more information is obtained ( like the greater precision of telescopes showing the earth isn't the center of the universe) is fascinating

[@ElectronFieldPulse]

Just found your channel, it is great! They actually weren’t just making up crazy theories back then, there was some logic to it. More logic than I expected really. Anyways, you just gained a subscriber!

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

turns out the average person before you were born was (gasp) not a lunatic! and they were doing the best they could with the information they had, just like you are, presumably.

[@piyo744]

​@@xXx_Regulus_xXxi genuinely really hope in the far future we're remembered like ancient philosophers. it would be so cool if we're wrong!

[@FalkFlak]

Very informative. But to be fair, gravity as an intrinsic quality of heavyness vs. gravity as an intrinsic quality of mass to bend spacetime isn't really that far off. We are just as far away to understand the real cause and take it for granted.

[@maalikserebryakov]

The current best theory says all energy contorts spacetime and things naturally move according to the shape of this contortion.

[@Aelthiest]

I've been reading Robert Grosseteste's work on the topic. Quite interesting. He drew diagrams like where would things fall if you cut the world in half. He maintained that if you cut off a third of the place, water would first have to fall towards the center and fill a smaller sphere until it grew larger than the removed part. Only then would it begin to flood the remainder. Very smart understanding of gravity for the 13th century.

[@McHobotheBobo]

Now this is a type of channel I have been looking for! Great work, looking forward to more!

[@michaelniederer2831]

History *and* science! My kind of click-bait! I'd really enjoy hearing you explore the thoughts of Francis Bacon, if the idea pleases you. Thanks again.

[@studiumhistoriae]

I've got a looooong list of topics I want to cover, and there are definitely a couple related to Francis Bacon on there

[@EarnestApostate]

Thanks! Honestly, you helped me see how the things that they thought were often quite logical, given the knowledge that they had. It also explains why heliocentrism would be so controversial even without the theological issues.

[@HighKingTurgon]

Ah, yes, studium historiae-a zeal for the story.

[@qwadratix]

In his Principia, Newton actually first proves, then states exactly that 'The force which retains the moon in it's orbit is that force which we commonly call gravity'. Those are his words exactly. In other words the word gravity had been in use for some time and was particularly relevant in ballistic calculations of cannon shot.

[@kalisticmodiani2613]

Gravity is the latin gravitas (heavyness, weight), so yes that word was not invented by Newton.

[@durg8909]

I appreciate you disclosing that your area of expertise is western thought. So many historical science videos only talk about western ideas but treat it as though it’s world history.

[@IIAOPSW]

When you think about it, Anaximander basically described the heat death of the universe and entropic forces leading to self organization.

[@hardworkingcriminal4873]

Very well explained. Usually im a lil confused on science topics but i feel more informed now.

[@Zombie-lx3sh]

I feel the need to compliment you on the spot on pronounciation of foreign words, including Greek, Latin and French. Well done and very impressive!

[@carterround4600]

Something that I found interesting in watching one of Veritasium’s videos, is that even Isaac Newton was uncomfortable with the idea that he supported, that gravity is some invisible force.

[@thewarnerchannel7285]

The video didn't even mention Galileo disproving that heavier objects fall faster, but it mentioned much more

[@jerryfoust3860]

That was a very helpful clarification of ancient views that have become strange and incomprehensible.

[@NielMalan]

0:39 As Koestler said, one of the greatest services Newton rendered to science was deciphering Kepler. 😂

[@Jrcoaca]

It's amazing how we come up with theories like this and fully believe them, even the smartest of us throughout history.

[@unnamedchannel1237]

It’s still happening today . Things we think we have an understanding of will be proven completely incorrect later

[@rursus8354]

Thank you for asking. They imagined an impetus, which was kind of a quantity driving the thrown item forwards, until this impetus was consumed, and then the item fell down.

[@barneylaurance1865]

Very interesting video. The main question it left me with was how pre-modern believers in heliocentrism (or anything other than geocentrism) like Copernicus understood gravity.

[@monkaeyes3417]

It is cool that the earth water wind fire idea is at least a recognition of different states of matter. Solid liquid gas and plasma. Where, generally speaking, they are right about the density of these attributes. I wonder what they thought about liquid metal?

[@SirCoughsalot]

Great video, subscribed. I think this goes a long way toward showing that premodern people weren't just blithering idiots making stuff up, but drew logical inferences from what they observed, just like scientists do today! As CS Lewis wrote in The Discarded Image (a book I highly recommend to anyone who found this video interesting!): "We can no longer dismiss the change of [cosmological] Models as a simple progression from error to truth. No Model is a catalogue of ultimate realities, and none is a mere fantasy. Each is a serious attempt to get in all the phenomena known at any given period, and each succeeds at getting in a great many. But also, no less surely, each reflects the prevalent psychology of an age almost as much as it reflects the state of that age's knowledge. Hardly any battery of new facts could have persuaded a Greek that the universe had an attribute as repugnant to him as infinity; hardly any such battery could persuade a modern that it is hierarchical."

[@okschn1207]

Incredible work here, 10/10 elegance in your storytelling. Great stuff man

[@52flyingbicycles]

You can tell the ancient geocentrists put a lot more thought into their work than modern ones 😅 I guess that’s because they lacked the measurements to disprove many aspects of their theories, something modern geocentrists must contend with

[@EPMTUNES]

Very interesting and well put together video. I like how you explain their models, and then talk about how they could have come to that conclusion and why they may have.

[@luisoncpp]

I remember reading that people hypothesized that each celestial body had a radius with gravity pulling the objects inside of it and there were different rules outside those spheres, but Newton came up with the idea that gravity was universal and all bodies were pulling each other rather than just the planets pulling the nearby objects

[@LiquidWater91]

It seems crazy just how long they were close to concepts of density, mass, and buoyancy to explain things, but never quite putting it altogether.

[@haristahir3472]

It perplexes me that the late civilizations might perceive our laws and theories as foolish or uneducated, akin to our perception of older and ancient theories.

[@renaatsenechal]

Great video, kepler is very underrated apparently

[@BS-vx8dg]

I am quite puzzled by one thing. The ancients were well aware of all five of the Platonic solids, and yet, they did not include the most beautiful of all (the dodecahedron) in their design. Is it because it does not have triangular faces? Perhaps, but neither does the cube, and _it_ was included. I guess one is left to conclude that the only platonic solid with five-sided faces was *the Fifth Element* , which was beyond the ken of the ancients.

[@triplebog]

Fascinating video! I do think it's interesting how you say that after newton, "gravity was no longer an intrinsic quality of heaviness or lightness, rather it was the property of mass" when mass is more or less, and especially at the time, mearly a measurement of how "heavy" a thing is.

[@dudemcgyverson]

Wow i really enjoyed this. Great presentation.

[@saint3106]

Fascinating video. Didn't even know I wanted to know this. Earned a subscriber.

[@le_plankton]

Dès que t'as dit le mot "René Descartes" j'ai immédiatement su que t'es un de mes confrères québécois :)

[@studiumhistoriae]

Coupable 😉

[@kaushiksunapu5657]

0:39 some Indian scholars atleast a couple hundred years before this described the idea of gravity in their works, its just that Newton is given credit for making it widely known.

[@studiumhistoriae]

That's exactly why I specified I'd be talking about western ideas. I am aware that Indian scholars proposed some idea of gravity, but I don't know enough about it to talk about it

[@sdutta8]

Glad he started with the disclaimer that he is going to discuss the history of Western thought about gravity, not about Global thought on this subject.

[@skweeshee2029]

Wow! This video is great, i found it really interesting that even if their theory was kinda crazy, it still made sense. 🔥

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

it only sounds crazy because it conflicts with what you know about gravity. if you take that away the theory in the video becomes the most plausibly correct one you've heard of

[@stevenstreets695]

These little marks on my forehead from my first definitive lesson in gravity in 1st grade at the galaxys greatest stem academy. Fell face first from monkey bars into playground gravel at USAFA. I'm sure Paleo kids learned the same way.

[@lorigulfnoldor2162]

Thank you! This is very interesting! Now I finally do understand what "hot" and "cold" meant, while before I believed it to be literal temperature. I wonder what "wet" and "dry" meant, though - I guess it must be not real moisture, either?

[@derekelliott6098]

Bland set background. Great video voice. Your voice reminds me a lot of thubprint (metal scrapping youtuber).

[@kounkieinc3714]

Aristole's idea reminds me more of entropy rather than gravity.

[@pewnit]

What I find fascinating is the Greeks had an idea of entropy going on even back in the day, centuries before entropy would be fully understood by science.

[@davidball8279]

I like the idea that earth, water, air and fire represent the phases solid, liquid, gas and plasma at STP

[@RyebuckCoppercap]

I feel like the Aristotelian views on gravity are more a description of buoyancy and density than gravity, which makes sense considering solids are usually denser than liquids, and the same goes for gases and plasma

[@scottdebrestian9875]

It's hard to have a theory of density however without something approaching an atomic view of the world. As far as the naked eye can see, air, water and stone are all continuous media, so what would make one denser than the other? If there is the same amount of 'stuff' in a unit volume, then differences in 'density' are equivalent to differences in intrinsic 'heaviness' and 'lightness'

[@AsdrubaelVect]

Great video! I'd love to see one about how pre-modern people thought about our body's need for oxygen. I think I heard there was a theory that breathing was a cooling system for the heart?

[@studiumhistoriae]

I talk a bit about that in my very first video on Ancient medicine. At least by the time of Galen (2nd century CE) the air we breathe was thought to be mixed with the blood to nourish the body, and some of it was refined by the brain to create a sort of ethereal fluid passing through the nerves which allowed for movement. But there were other views before that which could also be cool to talk about!

[@RodMartinJr]

*_Fascinating!_* Recently, while researching my own book on the Big Bang, I encountered the story of Aristarchus of Samos who apparently believed a heliocentric universe instead of geocentric, but that his ideas were shot down by his peers because of the lack of apparent stellar parallax. If the Sun was at the center, then the stars should shift as the Earth swung around the Sun, and the lack of such parallactic shift would mean, in a Heliocentric model that the stars were *_insanely far away_* -- too far for their imaginations to fathom. Sometimes, logic can lead to a wrong conclusion if that logic is itself based on a false premise ("impossibility of distance"). 😎♥✝🇺🇸💯

[@peterknutsen3070]

I once read that if Tycho Brahe’s extremely precise measurements had been just slightly more precise, like a factor 4 or 10, then he’d have seen stellar parallax..But he didn’t see any, so he concluded that geocentrism was correct.

[@RodMartinJr]

@@peterknutsen3070 Thank you, Peter. I learn something new every day. After 74 years, this does *_not_* get old. I love it. 😎♥✝🇺🇸💯

[@gwynbleidd1917]

This channel is great. Thank you for your hard work, making this video!

[@williamfrederick9670]

Your answering questions I never knew I had

[@faithlesshound5621]

Politics also affects what physics you chose to believe in. The Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1768 was written by Tories who wanted to combat the new ideas of the French Enlightenment and its Encylopédie of 1751, so they preferred Aristotle's concepts of earth and water having "gravity," whereas air and fire had "levity" to Newton's law of "universal gravitation." However, they said that experiments with vacuums created in glass jars had shown that light stuff also fell to the bottom, as did heavy stuff: there was no "levity"

[@maalikserebryakov]

Physics is experiment and theories based on those experiments. Whoever keeps that in mind will never be confused by government initiatives

[@LeksDee]

this channel is like Tasting History with Max Miller but without the Tasting and Max Miller

[@terrylandess6072]

Like much of life, sometimes we just accept things until a specific reason to dig deeper occurs. A non-scientific person can easily be forgiven by saying understanding something in detail doesn't change it. We celebrate science as it changes the way we can do things, giving us even more options yet those are just a few percentage of all the science that goes unnoticed yet much is still of interest. I personally believe our five senses will forever limit our ability to see beyond the big curtain science keeps trying to move.

[@Baszihter]

I love this topic choice! I wonder what about other knowledge that is obvious today?

[@_marshP]

So, Aristotle thinks water is wet?

[@TheCagamerda]

No I think he tought of it as not dry

[@JacoDeltaco]

Since he didn't suggest any channel for explaining gravity and other advanced theories. PBS Space Time would be my recommendation

[@Artyomi]

It actually kind of makes a lot of sense if your presume the Earth is the center of the universe (and are not aware of other gravitational bodies), and things just naturally align almost magnetically relative to the center like with the “spheres” diagram at 2:10, kind of like space-filling electron shells - where the higher shell you are in the higher energy level you have, although can move up and down depending on how much energy/heat an object has. There really is no need to explain gravity if you believe Earth is the center, then you don’t have to explain why other objects have gravity.

[@visheshl]

Gurutvaakarshan - very old Indian word for gravity. Indians knew about gravity long before newton. How much did they know about gravity, I don't know. But they had a word for it. Aakarshan in gurutvaakarshan means attraction : so they knew it was a force of attraction.

[@studiumhistoriae]

That's exactly why I specified I would only talk about western ideas of gravity. I knew there was an Indian concept but I don't know enough to go into it and it would likely deserve it's own video

[@maalikserebryakov]

Well any idiot can see things fall down. is this a feat?

[@DarknessProphet]

"It's not like people were just floating around in the air before Newton..." Citation needed!

[@hui-hui9921]

Great Video!

[@TriBgarage]

Once again, thank you for the video. You can see the reasoning of all the different views over time. And it's science that corrects.

[@Vicus_of_Utrecht]

Good job algo, good job. Subbed.

[@Lostboy811]

Come on we all know it's MAGICK

[@mickelodiansurname9578]

first not everyone believed this back then cos 99.9% of people didn't read and never thought about it, mostly becasue they had no ability to conceptualize the idea at all due to little or no education whatsoever. However if you were one of the elites and in the absence of what we know now, this sort of made sense. Certainly if no competing ideas came along I can see how this would make sense. Plus its really easy to iterate on a bad idea too.

[@jmi967]

At first glance the wet/dry and hot/cold arrangement makes sense but fire in reality most fires of the day would be hot & wet since most of the things being burned back then (wood) would have water as a major reactive product but since they didn’t know what water vapor was per se, they couldn't have guessed this. If memory serves, wood was thought to be made of water, earth, and fire but I’m guessing dry wood would be made of just earth and fire.

[@jmi967]

As a side note, most modern people don't realize that plants are technically made mostly of air, with only their water and mineral content coming from the ground. The majority of their mass (especially woody plants) is cellulose which is made mostly of carbon from co2.

[@jmi967]

Also, plants only convert co2 to o2 during daylight hours. At night they take in oxygen to burn sugar for energy.

[@barberousse1149]

3:19 isnt it the cheese element from which comes eternal happiness?

[@johnbutler825]

Nicely done. As someone who is slightly familiar with the content of your presentation, I'm not sure you emphasize enough the plausibility of the pre-Copernican theories. Given all the available evidence, these were the best that could be developed at the time, and, until Kepler and then Newton, all the alternatives had bigger problems than these did. (The oddity, of course, is that our understanding of gravity is still very imperfect, potentially subject to future revolutions in thought almost as great as those already undergone.)

[@Jakob.Hamburg]

"... premodern people in Europe ..." Inaccurate title, nice video.

[@bedengus]

'it is because of the inherent perfect form of heaviness', a better explanation than our nonsensical substitution of 'perfect form of heaviness' by the 'higgs'; and neither explain the mechanics through which such a motion is accomplished.

[@linkluver_izn]

were there any contemporary perspectives from Indian or Chinese philosophies ?

[@chekote]

6:36 is that a phase state diagram?! 🤯

[@briankleinschmidt3664]

They must have gotten that wrong in the translation. Copper and iron come from the earth, they are more "elemental" than earth. The Greeks meant that the four states of matter are elemental - everything is either solid, liquid, gas, or energy. That lines up with the earlier fellow's teaching. Also, it's pretty on point.

[@scottdebrestian9875]

"Earth" here is not equivalent to dirt or soil -- it is a pure substance. Nothing we can hold -- not dirt, or copper, or stone -- is pure 'earth' -- everything is a mixture of the four elements, but some substances have more earth than others.

[@TheLeonhamm]

Oddly enough, mass (as 'mass' = a large body of matter with no definite or definitive shape, e.g. a clod, a crowd, a cloud) is related to its inherent or substantial (underlying) composition and components - the lighter the amalgam (chemical mix) the freer the connection, i.e. gas, oil and coal (or coke, cinders and dust). And density = a substance's mass per unit of volume, the tighter the fit the denser the amalgam in volume = a measurement of the three dimensional extent of an object (in the chemical mix), or how 'much' the substance of an object contains express as elements = the notional indivisibility of the structure of an 'atom' (actually divided into parts and even particles), still refers basically to the measurable weight of the constituent elements. And 'gravitas' as applied to the mass with its density, in time, space and relative dimensions simply denotes the notional and observable (alterable, altering, and altered) effects of .. weight, quality, consistency, prevalence and ascendency in a given relationship between objects (in passing), a principle of action therefore, not a material substance (aka described best in the Metaphysics* rather than the Physics, more of a disposition rather than an agent). * Matter, Form, Agency, and End: 'Since a thing acts only insofar as it is in act, the aforesaid inchoate state of form, since it is not act, but a certain disposition for act, cannot be an active principle. And furthermore, even if it were a complete form, it would not act on its own subject by 'changing' it. For the form does not act, rather the composite acts. And the composite cannot alter itself unless there are two parts in it, one of which alters, the other of which is altered.' Aquinas, On Aristotle's Physics, Book Two, the principles of Natural Science, Lectio I, i

[@SaladrielAmrael]

Now, that was fascinating. Thanx for sharing knowledge

[@ТимофейЧерников-щ2х]

I like how Plato was just like: ok so Earth is cube, Fire is tetrahedron, and so on... source? I made it up!😎

[@Iggy_Dogg]

you remind me of that one sophomore kid from freaks and geeks. that's a compliment

[@elijahbachrach6579]

I had to stop 10 seconds in. That’s one description of gravity and not an answer to the question “why gravity?”

[@sphakamisozondi]

You, my good sir, have gained a subscriber

[@tincantank5174]

I think it was just “thing fall. Thing will always fall”

[@craigkdillon]

Newton invented gravity. So, no gravity before him. People just floated around. It was lovely.

[@h.i.sentertainments8580]

Please do the same, but for human brain/head's finctionality

[@reversev9778]

This is a wonderful video and you’ve definitely gained a subscriber in me

[@giorgioleoni3471]

What about other theories popular at the time, like Descartes' theory of vortices?

[@briankleinschmidt3664]

You can substitute "Pnuema" or "Pnuemena" with photon. but the pressure they apply is the result of outward growth

[@RandomGuyOnYoutube601]

Well done!

[@rafaelalexie2417]

Thank you!

[@jimmygravitt1048]

This is well done. Subscribed.

[@praevasc4299]

Interestingly, this is why heliocentrism was so slow to catch on in Galilei's time. There is a common myth that it was about the conflict between religion and science and the church was trying to hide knowledge which would disprove God, but that is false. In that time there was simply not enough evidence for heliocentrism. Stellar parallax was not yet measurable with the instruments of the time, and a big hurdle was gravity. As this video presents, the model at that time was that things have weight because it is a natural tendency of matter to move towards the center of the Universe. But if the Earth is not the center, then why are objects pulled towards the center of the Earth instead of the Sun? Interestingly, it was heliocentrists who brought in God into the discussion, explaining this problem away as a miracle. Geocentrists just used Aristotle's arguments and models.