Early History
Further information: History of astronomyElements of what became physics were drawn primarily from the fields of astronomy, optics, and mechanics, which were methodologically united through the study of geometry. These mathematical disciplines began in Antiquity with the Babylonians and with Hellenistic writers such as Archimedes and Ptolemy. Meanwhile, philosophy, including what was called "physics", focused on explanatory (rather than descriptive) schemes, largely developed around the Aristotelian idea of the four types of "causes".
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