Strato of Lampsacus

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Strato of Lampsacus (c.340 BC–c.268 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, who was mainly interested in physics, and the third director of the Lyceum after the death of Theophrastus.

He expanded on Aristotle's physics, noticing that falling objects (e.g. rainwater off a roof) accelerate as they reach the ground rather than falling at a steady rate as Aristotle foretold.

Belonging to the Peripatetic school of philosophers, another one of his teachings was the doctrine of the void, postulating that all bodies contained a void of variable size, which also accounted for weight differences between bodies.

Strato can also be regarded as the first philosopher to formulate an atheist worldview, in which the universe is regarded as a mechanism and transcendent forces (i.e. deities) are nonexistent.

One of his students was Aristarchus of Samos.