Infinities as natural places

TL;DR

This paper explores the concept of natural places in physics, drawing parallels between Aristotelian ideas and modern general relativity, specifically through conformal infinities and Carter-Penrose diagrams.

Contribution

It establishes a novel analogy between Aristotelian natural places and conformal infinities in general relativity, bridging ancient philosophy and modern physics.

Findings

Natural places correspond to conformal infinities in relativity.

A conceptual link is established between Aristotelian physics and modern spacetime geometry.

The notion of natural place is extended within the framework of general relativity.

Abstract

It is shown that a notion of natural place is possible within modern physics. For Aristotle, the elements$-$the primary components of the world$-$follow to their natural places in the absence of forces. On the other hand, in general relativity, the so-called Carter-Penrose diagrams offer a notion of end for objects along the geodesics. Then, the notion of natural place in Aristotelian physics has an analog in the notion of conformal infinities in general relativity.