Introduction
The words "space", "empty space","vacuum","void" and "nothingness" sound vaguely similar to us, and we sometimes use them interchangeably. Their meanings, however, are quite distinct. "Space" is actually a collective term that both scientists and mathematicians use, but in slightly different ways. That vast arena in which atoms, people, stars and galaxies move we call physical space. It has 3 dimensions, and it is occupied to varying degrees by matter and fields. Mathematicians like to deal with abstract space, which contains no physical substance, can havean unlimited number of dimensions, and whose properties are determined by various postulates. For example, the five postulates used by Euclid specifies the geometry of only a small subset of all possible abstract spaces: those which are 2-dimensional, infinite in extent, and perfectly flat. Other mathematical spaces may have no geometry to them at all, merely a collection of points which define a particular arithmetic.
Nothingness
Nothingness is often defined to be a condition in which all the qualities that we normally use to describe 'something' are negated by adding the word 'no' in front of each quality as a modifier: no time, no space, no matter etc. Philosophers have called this condition (or state) nihil and before the 13th century. The only place in which nothingness could exist was outside the outermost Heaven. Some philosophers even believed that God existed beyond the outermost Heaven and was therefore a part of this nothingness.
Pythagorean Dualism
From the dawn of the earliest written records around 3500 B.C. to the time of Thales of Miletos circa 600 B.C., space, to the extent it was considered at all, was seemlessly filled by some primordial, universal substance: water or air. Thales, one of the founders of the Ionian School in Asia Minor, concluded that water was the fundimental substance of the cosmos. Anaximandros, a contemporary of Thales, proposed that the prime substance cannot be tangeable, and invented a new substance he called Aperion to represent its indeterminate qualities. It wasn't until the establishment of the Pythagorean School ca 500 B.C. that the Ionian prime substance was replaced by a dualistic view in which a celestial substance and a 'sublunar' terrestrial substance co-existed. This view, in one form or another, held sway until the time of Galileo; a span of nearly 2000 years. This dualistic model is also similar to the Egyptian dichotomy between Nut and Shu.
A refinement of this Pythagorean dualism comes by way of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae circa 400 B.C. In the four pages of his works which have survived, called the Peri Physeos, Anaxagoras describes a cosmos in which air and a substance called Aether permeate the infinite universe. He was apparently aware of the corporeality of air, but considered Aether a much more rarefied substance filling space. These two substances were then organized into the stars, planets and terrestrial objects through a process of condensation. In retrospect, we can certainly forgive our ancestors their need for introducing something like Aether. After all, the sun, moon and stars are all glowing bodies, a basic property they share which is fundamentally different from the makeup of more terrestrial matter. It comes as no surprise that this difference was eventually recognized, and assigned to celestial and terrestrial matter.
A New Metaphysics
Among the earliest known debates over the existence of a vacuum or Void appears in the works by Parmenides of Elea circa 500 B.C. where he attempts to stem the tide of Pythagorean dualism by formulating a new metaphysics in which to eon or Being fills the totality of space. Its negation would be non-Being which would represent pure space, emptiness and a vacuum or void. He argued that non-Being could not exist since it is clear that Being does, hence, pure space, emptiness or a vacuum are contradictions to all of the qualities that make up the physical world. A contemporary of Parmenides was Leucippos who single handedly changed the shape of the debate over the composition of matter and space.
Atomist School
Leucippos and the other architect of the Atomist School, Democritus of Abdera, proposed matter as an infinitude of separate particles, atoms, which move in an infinite, empty space. They accepted the Pythagorean concept of the existence of empty space, and added to this the structure of the elemental nature of matter. The world, therefore, consisted of two parts: the 'full' or pleres, and the 'empty', or manon. The vacuum was absolutely required by the Atomist School, otherwise the atoms could not move about in space and all motion would stop. By the way, for reasons we will never know, Abdera, the home of the Atomist School, had the reputation of being the abode of stupid people. Greeks even made jokes about the stupidity of the Abderites.
Beyond Dualism to Five Element Universe
Aristotle circa 384 B.C. began as a student of Plato, but soon grew frustrated with the Idealist School and struck out on his own. In his book "De Caelo" he accepts that the universe consists of five elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Aether. The universe is spherical because that is the most perfect shape, and that there is nothing outside of the universe, not even space. Behind the sphere of the fixed stars there lives an unmoved, mover who influences all celestial motions which are themselves circular.
Nine Element Universe
Although western minds considered only a 5-element universe, Indian thinking on this subject perhaps as early as 700 B.C. had reached a slightly different conclusion. One of the six orthodox schools of Indian thought whose inception starts from about this time, called the Nyaya-Vaisesika School considered a 9-element universe consisting of essentially the 5 Aristotlean essences, but in addition: Time, Space, Mind and Self, forming a unique synthesis of physical and abstract elements. To the Nyaya-Vaisesika, space was not a passive recepticle into which bodies are added. Space has an objective reality with certain qualities like remotness, proximity, direction and dimension. Space is the cause of the notion of direction. It is eternal, all-pervading, and an infinite continuum. Some scholars have even suggested that it was the Indian 9-element cosmology that was the influence for early Greek thinkers, with Persia acting as the gateway for the contacts between Indian and early-Greek ideas.
So what we have seen so far is that sometime before the time of Parmenides and the Pythagorean School ( 500 B.C.) the idea of something which is losely translated as 'absolute vacuum' or 'pure empty space' began to make its appearance in the philosophical discussions on cosmology. The debate over the existence of a vacuum then proceeded in the manner of a contemporary tennis match: The Atomists believed in its existence ( 450 B.C.), Plato and Aristotle found it impossible and 'abhorrant' ( 350 B.C.), Epicuros of Samos reinstated its significance (300 B.C.) by asserting that nothing exists except atoms and the Void, but by then the respect for Aristotle's wisdom was already in its ascendency and his statements about the impossibility of the vacuum gained more respect with each passing century. Between the Golden Age of Artistotle and the beginning of the Dark Ages ca 400 AD, few innovative discussions have survived for examination beyond what the ancient Greek philosphers had proposed.
Preview Image
The geometric patterns in a diatom serve as an analog for the hidden geometry of empty space.
Citation
Odenwald, Sten, Ph.D. (Contributing Author); Bernard Haisch (Topic Editor). 2009. "Space: Early Etymology of the Word 'Space'." In: Encyclopedia of the Cosmos. Eds. Bernard Haisch and Joakim F. Lindblom (Redwood City, CA: Digital Universe Foundation). [First published January 5, 2008].
<http://www.cosmosportal.org/articles/view/137607/>
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Introduction
The words "space", "empty space","vacuum","void" and "nothingness" sound vaguely similar to us, and we sometimes use them interchangeably. Their meanings, however, are quite distinct. "Space" is actually a collective term that both scientists and mathematicians use, but in slightly different ways. That vast arena in which atoms, people, stars and galaxies move we call physical space. It has 3 dimensions, and it is occupied to varying degrees by matter and fields. Mathematicians like to deal with abstract space, which contains no physical substance, can havean unlimited number of dimensions, and whose properties are determined by various postulates. For example, the five postulates used by Euclid specifies the geometry of only a small subset of all possible abstract spaces: those which are 2-dimensional, infinite in extent, and perfectly flat. Other mathematical spaces may have no geometry to them at all, merely a collection of points which define a particular arithmetic.
Nothingness
Nothingness is often defined to be a condition in which all the qualities that we normally use to describe 'something' are negated by adding the word 'no' in front of each quality as a modifier: no time, no space, no matter etc. Philosophers have called this condition (or state) nihil and before the 13th century. The only place in which nothingness could exist was outside the outermost Heaven. Some philosophers even believed that God existed beyond the outermost Heaven and was therefore a part of this nothingness.
Pythagorean Dualism
From the dawn of the earliest written records around 3500 B.C. to the time of Thales of Miletos circa 600 B.C., space, to the extent it was considered at all, was seemlessly filled by some primordial, universal substance: water or air. Thales, one of the founders of the Ionian School in Asia Minor, concluded that water was the fundimental substance of the cosmos. Anaximandros, a contemporary of Thales, proposed that the prime substance cannot be tangeable, and invented a new substance he called Aperion to represent its indeterminate qualities. It wasn't until the establishment of the Pythagorean School ca 500 B.C. that the Ionian prime substance was replaced by a dualistic view in which a celestial substance and a 'sublunar' terrestrial substance co-existed. This view, in one form or another, held sway until the time of Galileo; a span of nearly 2000 years. This dualistic model is also similar to the Egyptian dichotomy between Nut and Shu.
A refinement of this Pythagorean dualism comes by way of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae circa 400 B.C. In the four pages of his works which have survived, called the Peri Physeos, Anaxagoras describes a cosmos in which air and a substance called Aether permeate the infinite universe. He was apparently aware of the corporeality of air, but considered Aether a much more rarefied substance filling space. These two substances were then organized into the stars, planets and terrestrial objects through a process of condensation. In retrospect, we can certainly forgive our ancestors their need for introducing something like Aether. After all, the sun, moon and stars are all glowing bodies, a basic property they share which is fundamentally different from the makeup of more terrestrial matter. It comes as no surprise that this difference was eventually recognized, and assigned to celestial and terrestrial matter.
A New Metaphysics
Among the earliest known debates over the existence of a vacuum or Void appears in the works by Parmenides of Elea circa 500 B.C. where he attempts to stem the tide of Pythagorean dualism by formulating a new metaphysics in which to eon or Being fills the totality of space. Its negation would be non-Being which would represent pure space, emptiness and a vacuum or void. He argued that non-Being could not exist since it is clear that Being does, hence, pure space, emptiness or a vacuum are contradictions to all of the qualities that make up the physical world. A contemporary of Parmenides was Leucippos who single handedly changed the shape of the debate over the composition of matter and space.
Atomist School
Leucippos and the other architect of the Atomist School, Democritus of Abdera, proposed matter as an infinitude of separate particles, atoms, which move in an infinite, empty space. They accepted the Pythagorean concept of the existence of empty space, and added to this the structure of the elemental nature of matter. The world, therefore, consisted of two parts: the 'full' or pleres, and the 'empty', or manon. The vacuum was absolutely required by the Atomist School, otherwise the atoms could not move about in space and all motion would stop. By the way, for reasons we will never know, Abdera, the home of the Atomist School, had the reputation of being the abode of stupid people. Greeks even made jokes about the stupidity of the Abderites.
Beyond Dualism to Five Element Universe
Aristotle circa 384 B.C. began as a student of Plato, but soon grew frustrated with the Idealist School and struck out on his own. In his book "De Caelo" he accepts that the universe consists of five elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Aether. The universe is spherical because that is the most perfect shape, and that there is nothing outside of the universe, not even space. Behind the sphere of the fixed stars there lives an unmoved, mover who influences all celestial motions which are themselves circular.
Nine Element Universe
Although western minds considered only a 5-element universe, Indian thinking on this subject perhaps as early as 700 B.C. had reached a slightly different conclusion. One of the six orthodox schools of Indian thought whose inception starts from about this time, called the Nyaya-Vaisesika School considered a 9-element universe consisting of essentially the 5 Aristotlean essences, but in addition: Time, Space, Mind and Self, forming a unique synthesis of physical and abstract elements. To the Nyaya-Vaisesika, space was not a passive recepticle into which bodies are added. Space has an objective reality with certain qualities like remotness, proximity, direction and dimension. Space is the cause of the notion of direction. It is eternal, all-pervading, and an infinite continuum. Some scholars have even suggested that it was the Indian 9-element cosmology that was the influence for early Greek thinkers, with Persia acting as the gateway for the contacts between Indian and early-Greek ideas.
So what we have seen so far is that sometime before the time of Parmenides and the Pythagorean School ( 500 B.C.) the idea of something which is losely translated as 'absolute vacuum' or 'pure empty space' began to make its appearance in the philosophical discussions on cosmology. The debate over the existence of a vacuum then proceeded in the manner of a contemporary tennis match: The Atomists believed in its existence ( 450 B.C.), Plato and Aristotle found it impossible and 'abhorrant' ( 350 B.C.), Epicuros of Samos reinstated its significance (300 B.C.) by asserting that nothing exists except atoms and the Void, but by then the respect for Aristotle's wisdom was already in its ascendency and his statements about the impossibility of the vacuum gained more respect with each passing century. Between the Golden Age of Artistotle and the beginning of the Dark Ages ca 400 AD, few innovative discussions have survived for examination beyond what the ancient Greek philosphers had proposed.
Preview Image
The geometric patterns in a diatom serve as an analog for the hidden geometry of empty space.
Citation
Odenwald, Sten, Ph.D. (Contributing Author); Bernard Haisch (Topic Editor). 2009. "Space: Early Etymology of the Word 'Space'." In: Encyclopedia of the Cosmos. Eds. Bernard Haisch and Joakim F. Lindblom (Redwood City, CA: Digital Universe Foundation). [First published January 5, 2008].
<http://www.cosmosportal.org/articles/view/137607/>
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