Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. This conception is named Euclidean space (named for the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, born sometime around 330 BC and dead at sometime around 260 BC). The physical objects that surround us evidence themselves by impressing on our sense organs the feeling of volume. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe although disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework. But, how did human beings come to use mathematics to describe the world around them? One of the early motivators for humans to perfect a language for communicating about the world in terms of numbers came from the need to measure the Earth. People were learning to build large temples and cultivate large fields. These people had spiritual and practical needs for understanding how to measure and describe the space around them.
The word geometry reflects this need. Geo is Greek for Earth, from the very ancient Greek Earth Goddess Gaia. Meter is related to measure and also to mother. But although the ancient Greeks succeeded in naming most of geometry, they were not the first people to discover much of what they've been given credit for. The ancient Mesopotamians figured out much of what the Greeks wrote down a millennium later, including what became known as the Pythagorean rule.
LH**2 = L1**2+ L2**2
Natural sciences always had a great influence on philosophy and on the way we see the world. Until the age of the Renaissance there was no clear distinction between philosophy and science. Speculations about physics and astronomy were among the favorite topics of the natural philosophers of antiquity and continued to flourish until the time of Copernicus (1530~). Copernicus is said to be the founder of modern astronomy. He was born in Poland and eventually was sent off to Cracow University, there to study mathematics and optics; at Bologna, canon law. Returning from his studies in Italy, Copernicus, through the influence of his uncle, was appointed as a canon in the cathedral of Frauenburg where he spent a sheltered and academic life for the rest of his days. Because of his clerical position, Copernicus moved in the highest circles of power; but a student he remained. For relaxation Copernicus painted and translated Greek poetry into Latin. His interest in astronomy gradually grew to be one in which he had a primary interest. His investigations were carried on quietly and alone, without help or consultation. He made his celestial observations from a turret situated on the protective wall around the cathedral, observations were made "bare eyeball," so to speak, as a hundred more years were to pass before the invention of the telescope. In 1530, Copernicus completed and gave to the world his great work De Revolutionibus, which asserted that the earth rotated on its axis once daily and traveled around the sun once yearly: a fantastic concept for the times. Up to the time of Copernicus the thinkers of the western world believed in the Ptolemiac theory that the universe was a closed space bounded by a spherical envelope beyond which there was nothing. Claudius Ptolemy, an Egyptian living in Alexandria, at about 150 A.D., gathered and organized the thoughts of the earlier thinkers. (It is to be noted that one of the ancient Greek astronomers, Aristarchus, did have ideas similar to those more fully developed by Copernicus but they were rejected in favour of the geocentric or earth-centered scheme as was espoused by Aristotle.) Ptolemy's findings were that the earth was a fixed, inert, immovable mass, located at the center of the universe, and all celestial bodies, including the sun and the fixed stars, revolved around it. It was a theory that appealed to human nature. It fit with the casual observations that a person might want to make in the field; and second, it fed man's ego.
The desire to explore the starry heavens and to reveal its secrets is probably as old as mankind itself. However, notable advances in this discipline were made only fairly recently, after the invention of the telescope in the 17th century.
In the eyes of physics, the world used to be a predictable place. Aristotle and Ptolemy laid the foundation for the scientific understanding of the universe, which remained authoritative for one-and-a-half thousand years. Until the time of Galileo, the Greeks were undisputed in natural science and astronomy. Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton changed this.
In Isaac Newton (1642-1727) 's view, space was absolute - in the sense that it existed permanently and independently of whether there were any matter in the space. Other natural philosophers, notably Gottfried Leibniz, thought instead that space was a collection of relations between objects, given by their distance and direction from one another. The great metaphysician Immanuel Kant described space and time as elements of a systematic framework that humans use to structure their experience; he referred to 'space' in his Critique of Pure Reason as being: a subjective 'pure a priori form of intuition', hence that its existence depends on our human faculties.
Isaac Newton revolutionized physics with his proposition that all bodies are governed by the three laws of motion. The first law of motion states that a body continues in a state of rest or continues to be moving uniformly in a straight line unless a force is applied to the object. The second law states that the force applied to an object is proportional to its mass multiplied by acceleration (F=ma). The third law states that for every action there is an equal opposite reaction.
With these three simple laws, Newton created a whole new model of the universe, superseding Ptolemy's model of epicycles. Eighty years before, Galileo (1564-1642) had pointed out that the Earth rotates around the Sun. The mechanics developed by Newton and Galileo provided the basis for 17th to 19th century cosmology. In this view, planets revolved in well-defined orbits around stars, where the rotational force is balanced by the gravitational force. According to the universal law of gravitation, bodies attract each other with a force F=m1*m2/r², which means that the force increases with mass and decreases (squared) with distance.
Given these natural laws, mankind derived a picture of the universe that accounts neatly for mass, position, and the motion of the celestial bodies while it interprets the latter as dynamic elements of a celestial apparatus, not unlike that of a mechanical apparatus. It is therefore called the mechanistic worldview. It was elaborated in its purest form by Marquis de Laplace (1749-1827) in his writing Mécanique Céleste. The mechanistic view sees the universe as an arrangement in which stars and planets interact with each other like springs and cogs in a clockwork, while God is watching from above. If the initial positions and states of all objects in a mechanically determined universe are known, all events can be predicted until the end of time, simply by applying the laws of mechanics. It was further thought that this kind of knowledge is available only to an omniscient God.
The mechanistic view does not make any statements about the creation of the universe. Things were taken as preestablished by the creator. From a mechanistic standpoint, solar systems like our own are in a delicate balance, because only a slight increase or decrease in mass or velocity of the planets would let the planets either spiral into the Sun or wander into outer space. There had to be a construction plan. There was a necessity for a creator God who initially put balance into the universe. Needless to say that the church was comfortable with this theory, despite the earlier quarrels with Galileo and in spite of the fact that it generally viewed scientific progress with great suspicion.
Bibliographic References
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime
2. http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/
3. http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/patricia/sptmtop.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space
5. http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Science/Copernicus.htm
6. schools-wikipedia.org/wp/v/Vector_%2528spatia...
