Impossible thought experiments were used (see Christopher Martin) not only to reduce things to absurdity, but also to investigate the nature of things, as Aristotle  ’s pupil, Eudemus, already points out, calling the experimental situation a hypothesis  , a usage followed also by Themistius  , Philoponus   and Simplicius  . An influential example was Aristotle’s experiment of mentally stripping all qualities and quantities off a body, in order to uncover the idea   of its first matter, Metaphysics   7.3; Physics 4.2 and 8. [SorabjiPC3  :48]