I have a physics question?

Question

the ancient greeks believed that all matter on earth or near earth was made up of four elements= earth, water, air, and fire. each was thought to have a natural place based on its heaviness and the highest place belonged to fire, then air, water, and at the bottom was earth. motion was thought to occur because an element traveled in a straight line toward its own natural place.

If that was true,how does this theory explain the motion of the four elements?

Answer 1

The denser the element is, the lower it is. Earth will sink into and displace water. Water will fall to displace air. But as fire is just heated air, it is less dense than it and rises. It was Aristotle's explanation of gravity. Galileo later disproved it by dropping two objects of different mass from the leaning tower of Pisa and showing that they fell at the same rate even though the heavier one was thought to contain more earth, thus should have fallen to the earth faster.

Edit: Um, wow. You are welcome. Glad I was able to help.