115-403: Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. Space , SPACE , spacing , or The Space may also refer to: Space Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions . In classical physics , physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions . Modern physicists usually consider it, with time , to be part of
230-465: A seismometer in 132 CE which provided instant alert to authorities in the capital Luoyang that an earthquake had occurred in a location indicated by a specific cardinal or ordinal direction . Although no tremors could be felt in the capital when Zhang told the court that an earthquake had just occurred in the northwest, a message came soon afterwards that an earthquake had indeed struck 400 to 500 km (250 to 310 mi) northwest of Luoyang (in what
345-461: A boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime . The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe . However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework . In the 19th and 20th centuries mathematicians began to examine geometries that are non-Euclidean , in which space
460-576: A case of the Mean Value theorem in his commentaries on Govindasvāmi and Bhāskara II . The Yuktibhāṣā was written by Jyeshtadeva in 1530. The first textual mention of astronomical concepts comes from the Vedas , religious literature of India. According to Sarma (2008): "One finds in the Rigveda intelligent speculations about the genesis of the universe from nonexistence, the configuration of
575-402: A concept of neighbourhood is defined, frequently by means of a distance ( metric spaces ). The elements of a space are often called points , but they can have other names such as vectors in vector spaces and functions in function spaces . Space is one of the few fundamental quantities in physics , meaning that it cannot be defined via other quantities because nothing more fundamental
690-440: A flat surface. After a while, as the bucket continues to spin, the surface of the water becomes concave. If the bucket's spinning is stopped then the surface of the water remains concave as it continues to spin. The concave surface is therefore apparently not the result of relative motion between the bucket and the water. Instead, Newton argued, it must be a result of non-inertial motion relative to space itself. For several centuries
805-640: A period of initial urban development in the Preclassical period , the Classic Maya civilization (c. 250 CE – c. 900 CE) built on the shared heritage of the Olmecs by developing the most sophisticated systems of writing , astronomy , calendrical science , and mathematics among Mesoamerican peoples. The Maya developed a positional numeral system with a base of 20 that included the use of zero for constructing their calendars. Maya writing, which
920-589: A person became ill, doctors prescribed magical formulas to be recited as well as medicinal treatments. The earliest medical prescriptions appear in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur ( c. 2112 BCE – c. 2004 BCE). The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū , or chief scholar, Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa , during
1035-666: A physician, nurse and patient necessary for recovery to health. An ancient Indian treatise on statecraft , economic policy and military strategy by Kautilya and Viṣhṇugupta , who are traditionally identified with Chāṇakya (c. 350–283 BCE). In this treatise, the behaviors and relationships of the people, the King, the State, the Government Superintendents, Courtiers, Enemies, Invaders, and Corporations are analyzed and documented. Roger Boesche describes
1150-443: A plane or sphere and, Poincaré argued, the same is true for the debate over whether real space is Euclidean or not. For him, which geometry was used to describe space was a matter of convention . Since Euclidean geometry is simpler than non-Euclidean geometry, he assumed the former would always be used to describe the 'true' geometry of the world. In 1905, Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity , which led to
1265-498: A point P not on L 1 , there is exactly one straight line L 2 on the plane that passes through the point P and is parallel to the straight line L 1 . Until the 19th century, few doubted the truth of the postulate; instead debate centered over whether it was necessary as an axiom, or whether it was a theory that could be derived from the other axioms. Around 1830 though, the Hungarian János Bolyai and
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#17327768836371380-687: A refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena." According to the historian A. Aaboe, "all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West—if not indeed all subsequent endeavour in the exact sciences—depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways." To the Babylonians and other Near Eastern cultures, messages from
1495-481: A similar way to the relations between family members. Although people in the family are related to one another, the relations do not exist independently of the people. Leibniz argued that space could not exist independently of objects in the world because that implies a difference between two universes exactly alike except for the location of the material world in each universe. But since there would be no observational way of telling these universes apart then, according to
1610-544: A standard meter or simply meter, is defined as the distance traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of exactly 1/299,792,458 of a second. This definition coupled with present definition of the second is based on the special theory of relativity in which the speed of light plays the role of a fundamental constant of nature. Geography is the branch of science concerned with identifying and describing places on Earth , utilizing spatial awareness to try to understand why things exist in specific locations. Cartography
1725-405: A way that all objects expand and contract in similar proportions in different places on the sphere. With a suitable falloff in temperature, if the scientists try to use measuring rods to determine the sum of the angles in a triangle, they can be deceived into thinking that they inhabit a plane, rather than a spherical surface. In fact, the scientists cannot in principle determine whether they inhabit
1840-542: A wide range of different backgrounds and cultures. Historians of science increasingly see their field as part of a global history of exchange, conflict and collaboration. The relationship between science and religion has been variously characterized in terms of "conflict", "harmony", "complexity", and "mutual independence", among others. Events in Europe such as the Galileo affair of the early-17th century – associated with
1955-416: Is a priori because it belongs to the subjective constitution of our mind as the form or manner of our intuition of external objects. Euclid's Elements contained five postulates that form the basis for Euclidean geometry. One of these, the parallel postulate , has been the subject of debate among mathematicians for many centuries. It states that on any plane on which there is a straight line L 1 and
2070-593: Is hyperbolic-orthogonal to each of the three spatial dimensions. Before Albert Einstein 's work on relativistic physics, time and space were viewed as independent dimensions. Einstein's discoveries showed that due to relativity of motion our space and time can be mathematically combined into one object– spacetime . It turns out that distances in space or in time separately are not invariant with respect to Lorentz coordinate transformations, but distances in Minkowski space along spacetime intervals are—which justifies
2185-528: Is conceived as curved , rather than flat , as in the Euclidean space . According to Albert Einstein 's theory of general relativity , space around gravitational fields deviates from Euclidean space. Experimental tests of general relativity have confirmed that non-Euclidean geometries provide a better model for the shape of space. Debates concerning the nature, essence and the mode of existence of space date back to antiquity; namely, to treatises like
2300-474: Is curved. Carl Friedrich Gauss , a German mathematician, was the first to consider an empirical investigation of the geometrical structure of space. He thought of making a test of the sum of the angles of an enormous stellar triangle, and there are reports that he actually carried out a test, on a small scale, by triangulating mountain tops in Germany. Henri Poincaré , a French mathematician and physicist of
2415-427: Is important due to its necessary relevance to survival, especially with regards to hunting and self preservation as well as simply one's idea of personal space . Several space-related phobias have been identified, including agoraphobia (the fear of open spaces), astrophobia (the fear of celestial space) and claustrophobia (the fear of enclosed spaces). The understanding of three-dimensional space in humans
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#17327768836372530-408: Is known at the present. On the other hand, it can be related to other fundamental quantities. Thus, similar to other fundamental quantities (like time and mass ), space can be explored via measurement and experiment. Today, our three-dimensional space is viewed as embedded in a four-dimensional spacetime , called Minkowski space (see special relativity ). The idea behind spacetime is that time
2645-461: Is necessary for agreement on claims about nature. In this light, the 1660 establishment of the Royal Society and its code of experiment – trustworthy because witnessed by its members – has become an important chapter in the historiography of science. Many people in modern history (typically women and persons of color) were excluded from elite scientific communities and characterized by
2760-475: Is no more than the collection of spatial relations between objects in the world: "space is that which results from places taken together". Unoccupied regions are those that could have objects in them, and thus spatial relations with other places. For Leibniz, then, space was an idealised abstraction from the relations between individual entities or their possible locations and therefore could not be continuous but must be discrete . Space could be thought of in
2875-481: Is not known, but space is known to be expanding very rapidly due to the cosmic inflation . The measurement of physical space has long been important. Although earlier societies had developed measuring systems, the International System of Units , (SI), is now the most common system of units used in the measuring of space, and is almost universally used. Currently, the standard space interval, called
2990-455: Is now modern Gansu ). Zhang called his device the 'instrument for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth' (Houfeng didong yi 候风地动仪), so-named because he and others thought that earthquakes were most likely caused by the enormous compression of trapped air. There are many notable contributors to early Chinese disciplines, inventions, and practices throughout the ages. One of
3105-767: Is on the multiple and overlapping social processes that produce space. In his book The Condition of Postmodernity, David Harvey describes what he terms the " time-space compression ." This is the effect of technological advances and capitalism on our perception of time, space and distance. Changes in the modes of production and consumption of capital affect and are affected by developments in transportation and technology. These advances create relationships across time and space, new markets and groups of wealthy elites in urban centers, all of which annihilate distances and affect our perception of linearity and distance. In his book Thirdspace, Edward Soja describes space and spatiality as an integral and neglected aspect of what he calls
3220-531: Is postulated that spacetime is geometrically distorted – curved – near to gravitationally significant masses. One consequence of this postulate, which follows from the equations of general relativity, is the prediction of moving ripples of spacetime, called gravitational waves . While indirect evidence for these waves has been found (in the motions of the Hulse–Taylor binary system, for example) experiments attempting to directly measure these waves are ongoing at
3335-599: Is recorded from the 4th century BCE and a sphere permanently mounted in equatorial axis from 52 BCE. In 125 CE Zhang Heng used water power to rotate the sphere in real time. This included rings for the meridian and ecliptic. By 1270 they had incorporated the principles of the Arab torquetum . In the Song Empire (960–1279) of Imperial China , Chinese scholar-officials unearthed, studied, and cataloged ancient artifacts. To better prepare for calamities, Zhang Heng invented
3450-438: Is stationary with respect to them; and objects are measured to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer. Subsequently, Einstein worked on a general theory of relativity , which is a theory of how gravity interacts with spacetime. Instead of viewing gravity as a force field acting in spacetime, Einstein suggested that it modifies the geometric structure of spacetime itself. According to
3565-415: Is the mapping of spaces to allow better navigation, for visualization purposes and to act as a locational device. Geostatistics apply statistical concepts to collected spatial data of Earth to create an estimate for unobserved phenomena. Geographical space is often considered as land, and can have a relation to ownership usage (in which space is seen as property or territory). While some cultures assert
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3680-412: Is thought to be learned during infancy using unconscious inference , and is closely related to hand-eye coordination . The visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions is called depth perception . Space has been studied in the social sciences from the perspectives of Marxism , feminism , postmodernism , postcolonialism , urban theory and critical geography . These theories account for
3795-559: The Arthaśāstra as "a book of political realism, a book analyzing how the political world does work and not very often stating how it ought to work, a book that frequently discloses to a king what calculating and sometimes brutal measures he must carry out to preserve the state and the common good." The development of Indian logic dates back to the Chandahsutra of Pingala and anviksiki of Medhatithi Gautama (c. 6th century BCE);
3910-664: The Timaeus of Plato , or Socrates in his reflections on what the Greeks called khôra (i.e. "space"), or in the Physics of Aristotle (Book IV, Delta) in the definition of topos (i.e. place), or in the later "geometrical conception of place" as "space qua extension" in the Discourse on Place ( Qawl fi al-Makan ) of the 11th-century Arab polymath Alhazen . Many of these classical philosophical questions were discussed in
4025-682: The Arabic -speaking Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age . The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived the learning of natural philosophy in the West. Traditions of early science were also developed in ancient India and separately in ancient China , the Chinese model having influenced Vietnam , Korea and Japan before Western exploration . Among
4140-699: The Bronze Age , Iron Age , classical antiquity , and the Middle Ages declined during the early modern period after the establishment of formal disciplines of science in the Age of Enlightenment . Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia around 3000 to 1200 BCE . These civilizations' contributions to mathematics , astronomy , and medicine influenced later Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity , wherein formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in
4255-627: The Greek and the Chinese logic . The Indian tradition continued to develop through early to modern times, in the form of the Navya-Nyāya school of logic. In the 2nd century, the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna refined the Catuskoti form of logic. The Catuskoti is also often glossed Tetralemma (Greek) which is the name for a largely comparable, but not equatable, 'four corner argument' within
4370-756: The Islamic world , introducing what would become Arabic numerals to the Islamic world by the 9th century. Narayana Pandita ( Sanskrit : नारायण पण्डित ) (1340–1400 ) was an Indian mathematician . Plofker writes that his texts were the most significant Sanskrit mathematics treatises after those of Bhaskara II , other than the Kerala school . He wrote the Ganita Kaumudi (lit. "Moonlight of mathematics") in 1356 about mathematical operations. The work anticipated many developments in combinatorics . During
4485-510: The LIGO and Virgo collaborations. LIGO scientists reported the first such direct observation of gravitational waves on 14 September 2015. Relativity theory leads to the cosmological question of what shape the universe is, and where space came from. It appears that space was created in the Big Bang , 13.8 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. The overall shape of space
4600-690: The Pre-Columbian peoples of Mesoamerica , the Zapotec civilization established their first known traditions of astronomy and mathematics for producing calendars , followed by other civilizations such as the Maya . Natural philosophy was transformed during the Scientific Revolution in 16th- to 17th-century Europe, as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The New Science that emerged
4715-519: The Renaissance and then reformulated in the 17th century, particularly during the early development of classical mechanics . Isaac Newton viewed space as absolute, existing permanently and independently of whether there was any matter in the. In contrast, other natural philosophers , notably Gottfried Leibniz , thought that space was in fact a collection of relations between objects, given by their distance and direction from one another. In
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4830-592: The Sanskrit grammar rules of Pāṇini (c. 5th century BCE); the Vaisheshika school's analysis of atomism (c. 6th century BCE to 2nd century BCE); the analysis of inference by Gotama (c. 6th century BC to 2nd century CE), founder of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy ; and the tetralemma of Nagarjuna (c. 2nd century CE). Indian logic stands as one of the three original traditions of logic , alongside
4945-644: The Tang dynasty and solutions of equations of order higher than 3 appeared in print in 1245 CE by Ch'in Chiu-shao . Pascal's triangle for binomial coefficients was described around 1100 by Jia Xian . Although the first attempts at an axiomatization of geometry appear in the Mohist canon in 330 BCE, Liu Hui developed algebraic methods in geometry in the 3rd century CE and also calculated pi to 5 significant figures. In 480, Zu Chongzhi improved this by discovering
5060-451: The conservation of energy , age of Earth , and evolution came into focus. And in the 20th century, new discoveries in genetics and physics laid the foundations for new sub disciplines such as molecular biology and particle physics . Moreover, industrial and military concerns as well as the increasing complexity of new research endeavors ushered in the era of " big science ," particularly after World War II . The nature of
5175-460: The identity of indiscernibles , there would be no real difference between them. According to the principle of sufficient reason , any theory of space that implied that there could be these two possible universes must therefore be wrong. Newton took space to be more than relations between material objects and based his position on observation and experimentation. For a relationist there can be no real difference between inertial motion , in which
5290-555: The morpheme and the root . The Tolkāppiyam text, composed in the early centuries of the common era, is a comprehensive text on Tamil grammar, which includes sutras on orthography, phonology, etymology, morphology, semantics, prosody, sentence structure and the significance of context in language. Findings from Neolithic graveyards in what is now Pakistan show evidence of proto-dentistry among an early farming culture. The ancient text Suśrutasamhitā of Suśruta describes procedures on various forms of surgery, including rhinoplasty ,
5405-664: The physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire , knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Latin -speaking Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages , but continued to thrive in the Greek -speaking Byzantine Empire . Aided by translations of Greek texts, the Hellenistic worldview was preserved and absorbed into
5520-420: The raised-relief map , toilet paper, the efficient harness, along with contributions in logic , astronomy , medicine , and other fields. However, cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into "modern science". According to Needham, it may have been the religious and philosophical framework of Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to accept the ideas of laws of nature: It
5635-455: The sine function in trigonometry and the number 0 [mathematics] . In 628 CE, Brahmagupta suggested that gravity was a force of attraction. He also lucidly explained the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit , along with the Hindu–Arabic numeral system now used universally throughout the world. Arabic translations of the two astronomers' texts were soon available in
5750-576: The " trialectics of being ," the three modes that determine how we inhabit, experience and understand the world. He argues that critical theories in the Humanities and Social Sciences study the historical and social dimensions of our lived experience, neglecting the spatial dimension. He builds on Henri Lefebvre's work to address the dualistic way in which humans understand space—as either material/physical or as represented/imagined. Lefebvre's "lived space" and Soja's "thirdspace" are terms that account for
5865-410: The 14th–16th centuries, the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics made significant advances in astronomy and especially mathematics, including fields such as trigonometry and analysis. In particular, Madhava of Sangamagrama led advancement in analysis by providing the infinite and taylor series expansion of some trigonometric functions and pi approximation. Parameshvara (1380–1460), presents
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#17327768836375980-424: The 1850s, Bernhard Riemann developed an equivalent theory of elliptical geometry , in which no parallel lines pass through P . In this geometry, triangles have more than 180° and circles have a ratio of circumference-to-diameter that is less than pi . Although there was a prevailing Kantian consensus at the time, once non-Euclidean geometries had been formalised, some began to wonder whether or not physical space
6095-454: The 18th century, the philosopher and theologian George Berkeley attempted to refute the "visibility of spatial depth" in his Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision . Later, the metaphysician Immanuel Kant said that the concepts of space and time are not empirical ones derived from experiences of the outside world—they are elements of an already given systematic framework that humans possess and use to structure all experiences. Kant referred to
6210-606: The 2500–1200 BCE, the ancient Egyptians believed that disease was mainly caused by the invasion of bodies by evil forces or spirits. Thus, in addition to using medicines , their healing therapies included prayer , incantation , and ritual. The Ebers Papyrus , written in around 1600 BCE, contains medical recipes for treating diseases related to the eyes, mouth, skin, internal organs, and extremities, as well as abscesses, wounds, burns, ulcers, swollen glands, tumors, headaches, and even bad breath. The Edwin Smith papyrus , written at about
6325-477: The Aristotelian worldview with a theory about space and motion as determined by natural laws . In other words, he sought a metaphysical foundation or a mechanical explanation for his theories about matter and motion. Cartesian space was Euclidean in structure—infinite, uniform and flat. It was defined as that which contained matter; conversely, matter by definition had a spatial extension so that there
6440-636: The Aryabhatan model for the interior planets, Mercury, and Venus and the equation that he specified for the center of these planets was more accurate than the ones in European or Islamic astronomy until the time of Johannes Kepler in the 17th century. Jai Singh II of Jaipur constructed five observatories called Jantar Mantars in total, in New Delhi , Jaipur , Ujjain , Mathura and Varanasi ; they were completed between 1724 and 1735. Some of
6555-646: The Babylonian calendar or the ones used in Greek city-states at the time, the official Egyptian calendar was much simpler as it was fixed and did not take lunar and solar cycles into consideration. The ancient Mesopotamians had extensive knowledge about the chemical properties of clay, sand, metal ore, bitumen , stone, and other natural materials, and applied this knowledge to practical use in manufacturing pottery , faience , glass, soap, metals, lime plaster , and waterproofing. Metallurgy required knowledge about
6670-692: The Chinese used a positional decimal system on counting boards in order to calculate. To express 10, a single rod is placed in the second box from the right. The spoken language uses a similar system to English: e.g. four thousand two hundred and seven. No symbol was used for zero. By the 1st century BCE, negative numbers and decimal fractions were in use and The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art included methods for extracting higher order roots by Horner's method and solving linear equations and by Pythagoras' theorem . Cubic equations were solved in
6785-505: The Russian Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky separately published treatises on a type of geometry that does not include the parallel postulate, called hyperbolic geometry . In this geometry, an infinite number of parallel lines pass through the point P . Consequently, the sum of angles in a triangle is less than 180° and the ratio of a circle 's circumference to its diameter is greater than pi . In
6900-419: The best examples would be the medieval Song Chinese Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a polymath and statesman who was the first to describe the magnetic -needle compass used for navigation , discovered the concept of true north , improved the design of the astronomical gnomon , armillary sphere , sight tube, and clepsydra , and described the use of drydocks to repair boats. After observing the natural process of
7015-528: The bucket argument was considered decisive in showing that space must exist independently of matter. In the eighteenth century the German philosopher Immanuel Kant published his theory of space as "a property of our mind" by which "we represent to ourselves objects as outside us, and all as in space" in the Critique of Pure Reason On his view the nature of spatial predicates are "relations that only attach to
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#17327768836377130-515: The changing length of daylight in the course of the year, predict the appearances and disappearances of the Moon and planets, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Only a few astronomers' names are known, such as that of Kidinnu , a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Kiddinu's value for the solar year is in use for today's calendars. Babylonian astronomy was "the first and highly successful attempt at giving
7245-477: The community, and managed in their name by delegated bodies; such spaces are open to all, while private property is the land culturally owned by an individual or company, for their own use and pleasure. Abstract space is a term used in geography to refer to a hypothetical space characterized by complete homogeneity. When modeling activity or behavior, it is a conceptual tool used to limit extraneous variables such as terrain. Psychologists first began to study
7360-476: The complex ways in which humans understand and navigate place, which "firstspace" and "Secondspace" (Soja's terms for material and imagined spaces respectively) do not fully encompass. Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha 's concept of Third Space is different from Soja's Thirdspace, even though both terms offer a way to think outside the terms of a binary logic. Bhabha's Third Space is the space in which hybrid cultural forms and identities exist. In his theories,
7475-449: The concept that space and time can be viewed as a single construct known as spacetime . In this theory, the speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers—which has the result that two events that appear simultaneous to one particular observer will not be simultaneous to another observer if the observers are moving with respect to one another. Moreover, an observer will measure a moving clock to tick more slowly than one that
7590-406: The design of buildings and structures, and on farming. Ownership of space is not restricted to land. Ownership of airspace and of waters is decided internationally. Other forms of ownership have been recently asserted to other spaces—for example to the radio bands of the electromagnetic spectrum or to cyberspace . Public space is a term used to define areas of land as collectively owned by
7705-522: The domestication of maize for agriculture has been dated to about 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico , before the development of writing systems . Similarly, archaeological evidence indicates the development of astronomical knowledge in preliterate societies. The oral tradition of preliterate societies had several features, the first of which was its fluidity. New information was constantly absorbed and adjusted to new circumstances or community needs. There were no archives or reports. This fluidity
7820-467: The earliest linguistic activities can be found in Iron Age India (1st millennium BCE) with the analysis of Sanskrit for the purpose of the correct recitation and interpretation of Vedic texts. The most notable grammarian of Sanskrit was Pāṇini (c. 520–460 BCE), whose grammar formulates close to 4,000 rules for Sanskrit. Inherent in his analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme ,
7935-416: The effect of the history of colonialism, transatlantic slavery and globalization on our understanding and experience of space and place. The topic has garnered attention since the 1980s, after the publication of Henri Lefebvre 's The Production of Space . In this book, Lefebvre applies Marxist ideas about the production of commodities and accumulation of capital to discuss space as a social product. His focus
8050-518: The eighteenth-century BCE, records a number of Pythagorean triplets (3,4,5) (5,12,13) ..., hinting that the ancient Mesopotamians might have been aware of the Pythagorean theorem over a millennium before Pythagoras. Mathematical achievements from Mesopotamia had some influence on the development of mathematics in India, and there were confirmed transmissions of mathematical ideas between India and China, which were bidirectional. Nevertheless,
8165-413: The experience of "space" in his Critique of Pure Reason as being a subjective "pure a priori form of intuition". Galilean and Cartesian theories about space, matter, and motion are at the foundation of the Scientific Revolution , which is understood to have culminated with the publication of Newton 's Principia Mathematica in 1687. Newton's theories about space and time helped him explain
8280-626: The extent to which philosophy and science would flourish in ancient times depended on the efficiency of a writing system (e.g., use of alphabets). The earliest roots of science can be traced to the Ancient Near East , in particular Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Starting in around 3000 BCE, the ancient Egyptians developed a numbering system that was decimal in character and had oriented their knowledge of geometry to solving practical problems such as those of surveyors and builders. Their development of geometry
8395-406: The form of intuition alone, and thus to the subjective constitution of our mind, without which these predicates could not be attached to anything at all." This develops his theory of knowledge in which knowledge about space itself can be both a priori and synthetic . According to Kant, knowledge about space is synthetic because any proposition about space cannot be true merely in virtue of
8510-462: The general theory, time goes more slowly at places with lower gravitational potentials and rays of light bend in the presence of a gravitational field. Scientists have studied the behaviour of binary pulsars , confirming the predictions of Einstein's theories, and non-Euclidean geometry is usually used to describe spacetime. In modern mathematics spaces are defined as sets with some added structure. They are typically topological spaces , in which
8625-468: The gods or omens were concealed in all natural phenomena that could be deciphered and interpreted by those who are adept. Hence, it was believed that the gods could speak through all terrestrial objects (e.g., animal entrails, dreams, malformed births, or even the color of a dog urinating on a person) and celestial phenomena. Moreover, Babylonian astrology was inseparable from Babylonian astronomy. The Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet Plimpton 322 , dating to
8740-571: The greater Asian region in general can be traced to the scientific activities of Jesuit missionaries who were interested in studying the region's flora and fauna during the 16th to 17th century. The earliest traces of mathematical knowledge in the Indian subcontinent appear with the Indus Valley Civilisation (c. 4th millennium BCE ~ c. 3rd millennium BCE). The people of this civilization made bricks whose dimensions were in
8855-454: The history of science is a topic of debate (as is, by implication, the definition of science itself). The history of science is often seen as a linear story of progress but historians have come to see the story as more complex. Alfred Edward Taylor has characterised lean periods in the advance of scientific discovery as "periodical bankruptcies of science". Science is a human activity, and scientific contributions have come from people from
8970-590: The inundation of silt and the find of marine fossils in the Taihang Mountains (hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean), Shen Kuo devised a theory of land formation, or geomorphology . He also adopted a theory of gradual climate change in regions over time, after observing petrified bamboo found underground at Yan'an , Shaanxi province. If not for Shen Kuo's writing, the architectural works of Yu Hao would be little known, along with
9085-508: The inventor of movable type printing , Bi Sheng (990–1051). Shen's contemporary Su Song (1020–1101) was also a brilliant polymath, an astronomer who created a celestial atlas of star maps, wrote a treatise related to botany , zoology , mineralogy , and metallurgy , and had erected a large astronomical clocktower in Kaifeng city in 1088. To operate the crowning armillary sphere , his clocktower featured an escapement mechanism and
9200-548: The knowledge of this was lost during the Ming dynasty, so that the Jesuit Matteo Ricci gained much favor in 1601 by his predictions. By 635 Chinese astronomers had observed that the tails of comets always point away from the sun. From antiquity, the Chinese used an equatorial system for describing the skies and a star map from 940 was drawn using a cylindrical ( Mercator ) projection. The use of an armillary sphere
9315-413: The late 19th century, introduced an important insight in which he attempted to demonstrate the futility of any attempt to discover which geometry applies to space by experiment. He considered the predicament that would face scientists if they were confined to the surface of an imaginary large sphere with particular properties, known as a sphere-world . In this world, the temperature is taken to vary in such
9430-565: The mathematical and scientific achievements in India and particularly in China occurred largely independently from those of Europe and the confirmed early influences that these two civilizations had on the development of science in Europe in the pre-modern era were indirect, with Mesopotamia and later the Islamic World acting as intermediaries. The arrival of modern science, which grew out of the Scientific Revolution , in India and China and
9545-430: The meaning of the terms contained in the proposition. In the counter-example, the proposition "all unmarried men are bachelors" is true by virtue of each term's meaning. Further, space is a priori because it is the form of our receptive abilities to receive information about the external world. For example, someone without sight can still perceive spatial attributes via touch, hearing, and smell. Knowledge of space itself
9660-468: The movement of objects. While his theory of space is considered the most influential in physics, it emerged from his predecessors' ideas about the same. As one of the pioneers of modern science , Galileo revised the established Aristotelian and Ptolemaic ideas about a geocentric cosmos. He backed the Copernican theory that the universe was heliocentric , with a stationary Sun at the center and
9775-546: The name. In addition, time and space dimensions should not be viewed as exactly equivalent in Minkowski space. One can freely move in space but not in time. Thus, time and space coordinates are treated differently both in special relativity (where time is sometimes considered an imaginary coordinate) and in general relativity (where different signs are assigned to time and space components of spacetime metric ). Furthermore, in Einstein's general theory of relativity , it
9890-433: The object travels with constant velocity , and non-inertial motion , in which the velocity changes with time, since all spatial measurements are relative to other objects and their motions. But Newton argued that since non-inertial motion generates forces , it must be absolute. He used the example of water in a spinning bucket to demonstrate his argument. Water in a bucket is hung from a rope and set to spin, starts with
10005-464: The planets; risings and settings; the moon's crescent; conjunctions of the planets with each other; conjunctions of the planets with the fixed stars; and the patas of the sun and moon. The 13 chapters of the second part cover the nature of the sphere, as well as significant astronomical and trigonometric calculations based on it. In the Tantrasangraha treatise, Nilakantha Somayaji 's updated
10120-627: The planets—including the Earth—revolving around the Sun. If the Earth moved, the Aristotelian belief that its natural tendency was to remain at rest was in question. Galileo wanted to prove instead that the Sun moved around its axis, that motion was as natural to an object as the state of rest. In other words, for Galileo, celestial bodies, including the Earth, were naturally inclined to move in circles. This view displaced another Aristotelian idea—that all objects gravitated towards their designated natural place-of-belonging. Descartes set out to replace
10235-476: The properties of metals. Nonetheless, the Mesopotamians seem to have had little interest in gathering information about the natural world for the mere sake of gathering information and were far more interested in studying the manner in which the gods had ordered the universe . Biology of non-human organisms was generally only written about in the context of mainstream academic disciplines. Animal physiology
10350-833: The proportion 4:2:1, which is favorable for the stability of a brick structure. They also tried to standardize measurement of length to a high degree of accuracy. They designed a ruler—the Mohenjo-daro ruler —whose unit of length (approximately 1.32 inches or 3.4 centimeters) was divided into ten equal parts. Bricks manufactured in ancient Mohenjo-daro often had dimensions that were integral multiples of this unit of length. The Bakhshali manuscript contains problems involving arithmetic , algebra and geometry , including mensuration . The topics covered include fractions, square roots, arithmetic and geometric progressions , solutions of simple equations, simultaneous linear equations , quadratic equations and indeterminate equations of
10465-446: The ratio 355 113 {\displaystyle {\tfrac {355}{113}}} which remained the most accurate value for 1200 years. Astronomical observations from China constitute the longest continuous sequence from any civilization and include records of sunspots (112 records from 364 BCE), supernovas (1054), lunar and solar eclipses. By the 12th century, they could reasonably accurately make predictions of eclipses, but
10580-785: The reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069–1046 BCE). In East Semitic cultures, the main medicinal authority was a kind of exorcist-healer known as an āšipu . The profession was generally passed down from father to son and was held in extremely high regard. Of less frequent recourse was another kind of healer known as an asu , who corresponds more closely to a modern physician and treated physical symptoms using primarily folk remedies composed of various herbs, animal products, and minerals, as well as potions, enemas, and ointments or poultices . These physicians, who could be either male or female, also dressed wounds, set limbs, and performed simple surgeries. The ancient Mesopotamians also practiced prophylaxis and took measures to prevent
10695-399: The repair of torn ear lobes, perineal lithotomy , cataract surgery, and several other excisions and other surgical procedures. The Charaka Samhita of Charaka describes ancient theories on human body, etiology , symptomology and therapeutics for a wide range of diseases. It also includes sections on the importance of diet, hygiene, prevention, medical education, and the teamwork of
10810-577: The rights of the individual in terms of ownership, other cultures will identify with a communal approach to land ownership, while still other cultures such as Australian Aboriginals , rather than asserting ownership rights to land, invert the relationship and consider that they are in fact owned by the land. Spatial planning is a method of regulating the use of space at land-level, with decisions made at regional, national and international levels. Space can also impact on human and cultural behavior, being an important factor in architecture, where it will impact on
10925-459: The same time, contains a surgical manual for treating wounds, fractures, and dislocations. The Egyptians believed that the effectiveness of their medicines depended on the preparation and administration under appropriate rituals. Medical historians believe that ancient Egyptian pharmacology, for example, was largely ineffective. Both the Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri applied the following components to
11040-525: The science establishment as inferior . Historians in the 1980s and 1990s described the structural barriers to participation and began to recover the contributions of overlooked individuals. Historians have also investigated the mundane practices of science such as fieldwork and specimen collection, correspondence, drawing, record-keeping, and the use of laboratory and field equipment. In prehistoric times, knowledge and technique were passed from generation to generation in an oral tradition . For instance,
11155-604: The scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment – led scholars such as John William Draper to postulate ( c. 1874 ) a conflict thesis , suggesting that religion and science have been in conflict methodologically, factually and politically throughout history. The "conflict thesis" has since lost favor among the majority of contemporary scientists and historians of science. However, some contemporary philosophers and scientists, such as Richard Dawkins , still subscribe to this thesis. Historians have emphasized that trust
11270-538: The second degree. In the 3rd century BCE, Pingala presents the Pingala-sutras, the earliest known treatise on Sanskrit prosody . He also presents a numerical system by adding one to the sum of place values . Pingala's work also includes material related to the Fibonacci numbers , called mātrāmeru . Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata (476–550), in his Aryabhatiya (499) introduced
11385-467: The spread of disease. In Babylonian astronomy , records of the motions of the stars , planets , and the moon are left on thousands of clay tablets created by scribes . Even today, astronomical periods identified by Mesopotamian proto-scientists are still widely used in Western calendars such as the solar year and the lunar month . Using this data, they developed mathematical methods to compute
11500-439: The term hybrid describes new cultural forms that emerge through the interaction between colonizer and colonized. Modern science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present . It encompasses all three major branches of science : natural , social , and formal . Protoscience , early sciences , and natural philosophies such as alchemy and astrology during
11615-451: The tradition of Classical logic . Navya-Nyāya developed a sophisticated language and conceptual scheme that allowed it to raise, analyse, and solve problems in logic and epistemology. It systematised all the Nyāya concepts into four main categories: sense or perception (pratyakşa), inference (anumāna), comparison or similarity ( upamāna ), and testimony (sound or word; śabda). From the earliest
11730-403: The treatment of disease: examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and, according to G.E.R. Lloyd, played a significant role in the development of this methodology. The ancient Egyptians even developed an official calendar that contained twelve months, thirty days each, and five days at the end of the year. Unlike
11845-664: The universe as they intuited it. During the Middle Formative Period (c. 900 BCE – c. 300 BCE) of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica , the Zapotec civilization , heavily influenced by the Olmec civilization , established the first known full writing system of the region (possibly predated by the Olmec Cascajal Block ), as well as the first known astronomical calendar in Mesoamerica . Following
11960-510: The universe, the spherical self-supporting earth , and the year of 360 days divided into 12 equal parts of 30 days each with a periodical intercalary month.". The first 12 chapters of the Siddhanta Shiromani , written by Bhāskara in the 12th century, cover topics such as: mean longitudes of the planets; true longitudes of the planets; the three problems of diurnal rotation; syzygies; lunar eclipses; solar eclipses; latitudes of
12075-461: The way space is perceived in the middle of the 19th century. Those now concerned with such studies regard it as a distinct branch of psychology . Psychologists analyzing the perception of space are concerned with how recognition of an object's physical appearance or its interactions are perceived, see, for example, visual space . Other, more specialized topics studied include amodal perception and object permanence . The perception of surroundings
12190-625: The world to our ability to think rather than to our experiences, as the empiricists believe. He posited a clear distinction between the body and mind, which is referred to as the Cartesian dualism . Following Galileo and Descartes, during the seventeenth century the philosophy of space and time revolved around the ideas of Gottfried Leibniz , a German philosopher–mathematician, and Isaac Newton , who set out two opposing theories of what space is. Rather than being an entity that independently exists over and above other matter, Leibniz held that space
12305-422: The world's oldest known use of an endless power-transmitting chain drive . The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries "learned to appreciate the scientific achievements of this ancient culture and made them known in Europe. Through their correspondence European scientists first learned about the Chinese science and culture." Western academic thought on the history of Chinese technology and science
12420-450: Was an inclination to unquestioningly accept explanations that might be deemed implausible in more modern times while at the same time not being aware that such credulous behaviors could have posed problems. The development of writing enabled humans to store and communicate knowledge across generations with much greater accuracy. Its invention was a prerequisite for the development of philosophy and later science in ancient times . Moreover,
12535-567: Was closely related to the practical need to explain and justify a present state of affairs. Another feature was the tendency to describe the universe as just sky and earth, with a potential underworld . They were also prone to identify causes with beginnings, thereby providing a historical origin with an explanation. There was also a reliance on a " medicine man " or " wise woman " for healing, knowledge of divine or demonic causes of diseases, and in more extreme cases, for rituals such as exorcism , divination , songs, and incantations . Finally, there
12650-570: Was galvanized by the work of Joseph Needham and the Needham Research Institute. Among the technological accomplishments of China were, according to the British scholar Needham, the water-powered celestial globe (Zhang Heng), dry docks , sliding calipers , the double-action piston pump , the blast furnace , the multi-tube seed drill , the wheelbarrow , the suspension bridge , the winnowing machine , gunpowder ,
12765-538: Was itself a necessary development of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland , which was flooded annually by the Nile River. The 3-4-5 right triangle and other rules of geometry were used to build rectilinear structures, and the post and lintel architecture of Egypt. Egypt was also a center of alchemy research for much of the Mediterranean . Based on the medical papyri written in
12880-411: Was more mechanistic in its worldview, more integrated with mathematics, and more reliable and open as its knowledge was based on a newly defined scientific method . More "revolutions" in subsequent centuries soon followed. The chemical revolution of the 18th century, for instance, introduced new quantitative methods and measurements for chemistry . In the 19th century , new perspectives regarding
12995-417: Was no such thing as empty space. The Cartesian notion of space is closely linked to his theories about the nature of the body, mind and matter. He is famously known for his "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am), or the idea that we can only be certain of the fact that we can doubt, and therefore think and therefore exist. His theories belong to the rationalist tradition, which attributes knowledge about
13110-423: Was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime. The Taoists , indeed, would have scorned such an idea as being too naïve for the subtlety and complexity of
13225-529: Was studied extensively for the purpose of divination ; the anatomy of the liver , which was seen as an important organ in haruspicy , was studied in particularly intensive detail. Animal behavior was also studied for divinatory purposes. Most information about the training and domestication of animals was probably transmitted orally without being written down, but one text dealing with the training of horses has survived. The ancient Mesopotamians had no distinction between "rational science" and magic . When
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