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At age seventeen, Aristotle joined Plato's Academy as a student. Aristotle then began tot each in the Academy. He taught there for twenty years. After leaving the Academy for political reasons, Aristotle founded his own Academy, also in Athens. At this institution Aristotle taught and researched in almost every subject, including logic, physics astronomy, zoology, metaphysics, politics, and poetics. Many of these subjects, most notably logic, did not even exist before Aristotle. In physics, Aristotle began the study of mechanics and laid down the laws of motion that would remain until Galileo's time. He taught that there are two classes of motion, violent and natural. Natural motion was what occurred when an object seeds to return to its proper place. Therefore, a rock dropped falls to the ground because the ground is its proper place. Violent motion was motion imposed in an unnatural direction. A bullet fired from a gun does not go to the ground, its natural place, but moves forward because something is violently pushing it. |