WEBVTT - From the Vault: Horror Vacui, Part 3 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:08.240 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's Robert 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:10.520 Lamb again and we have another Vault episode for you. 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.239 This is part three of our series from last year 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:22.800 on Horror vacuu I I hope you enjoy. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:31.360 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:32.800 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.040 And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part three 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.479 of our series on Horror Vacui or Fear of the Void, 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.120 which we have. We've been mainly focusing I think on 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.000 art and design in the past couple of episodes, but 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.440 today I wanted to take a look at the history 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:53.600 of the vacuum, and specifically resistance to the idea of 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:59.000 the vacuum in philosophy and physics. And to begin, I 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:03.720 was reading at the scientific history of vacuum physics in 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.440 a book called The Void by Frank Close from Oxford 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.080 University Press in two thousand and seven. Frank Close is 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.520 a professor of physics at Oxford. I think emeritis now, 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.520 but anyway, I was reading about this and he included 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.320 a quote from the rig Veda that I thought was 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.920 very interesting. This is from the creation Hymn of the 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:28.319 rig Veda, which says, in translation, there was neither non 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.080 existence nor existence. Then there was neither the realm of 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.800 space nor the sky, which is beyond what stirred where? 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.000 And I really like this because it I think it 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:48.760 encapsulates a kind of a fascinated but challenging history of 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:53.600 attempts to conceptualize empty space, to even imagine what empty 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.120 space would mean if it were to exist, Because I 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.200 noticed kind of a gap here. As far as I 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.280 can tell, most people all around the world today, even 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.720 in various different cultures whatever, really, as far as I 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:12.400 can tell, don't seem to express any major problems making 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.679 sense of the idea of empty space. Obviously, there is 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:18.800 a lot we don't know about the nature of space. 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:21.919 What is space, where does it come from? What different 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.280 kinds of space could there be, and so forth. So 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.440 space is still a vessel of many mysteries. It's not 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:29.920 like we've got it all solved. But if you just 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.160 simplify the idea to the basics, I and I think 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.920 most people don't have any problem imagining the concept of 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.280 an area of three dimensional space with no particles in it. 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.000 That just yeah, Okay, that makes sense as an idea 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.799 to me. But if you read about how ancient Greek 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.960 philosophers wrote about this question, I do not get the 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.400 impression that the same was generally true for them. Not 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.560 only did many of them deny the possibility of empty 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.880 space existing, sometimes I get the feeling that they are 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.679 struggling to even imagine what the concept would mean. Do 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:07.560 you know what I'm getting at here, Rob. 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.680 Yeah, Yeah, this is something we talked a little bit 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:17.200 about off Mike before the episode here. Yeah, it's it's 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.080 kind of complicated. I mean, one level, they're always going 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:24.760 to be linguistic possibilities in play. For example, I was 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.120 looking into some sources on the void in Chinese philosophy, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.560 and you run into, for example, that they are separate 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.520 terms for such concepts as emptiness, nothingness, and the infinite 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.560 or the absolute and one source here, I was looking 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.520 at Fan Magois in Frontiers of Philosophy in China from 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:46.200 twenty ten, contents that their subtleties involved that quote English 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.640 language is unable to capture. So yeah, we have to 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.440 acknowledge linguistic possibilities. But on the other hand, like thinking 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.080 about like what is it as a modern human, Like, 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.200 why do I, like, you have no problem imagining a 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:04.040 vacuum or or even a void. And I think part 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.920 of it may be like just the mechanical possibilities that 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:11.280 we have now and the media evidence thereof. So for instance, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.960 when I think about a perfect vacuum, I can imagine 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.080 a device that mechanically makes it so within say a 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.320 closed space, I can think back to footage of someone 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.040 in a It's not a perfect vacuum, but a place 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:25.840 that has no air, that's sort of vacuum. Because I 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:27.839 guess we get into differences too. Are we talking about 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:33.000 a space without air in which say a scientist in 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.400 a suit may drop a feather and a bowling ball 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:39.520 and do that whole experiment, or are we talking about 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.760 something that is a true vacuum with nothing in it 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:47.039 at all, like like an absolute void. And there are 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.119 differences there, but yeah, as far as just like maybe 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.560 it gets into the idea of imagining a space with 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.880 air in it, Like we have this clear idea of 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.800 what atmosphere is and what air is, and we can 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.359 also see and behold and sort of to some degree 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:07.400 understand the mechanics by which that air may be removed 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.719 from a space, and therefore you could have a space 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.480 where the visible is not present and the invisible has 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:13.360 been removed as well. 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.640 Yeah, that's a very good point. And I think, for like, 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:22.960 one major difference may be the unsettled question of like 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.480 whether the air itself has weight for much of human history. Like, 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:28.719 if you don't have that worked out, it may just 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.360 be harder to imagine what space devoid of even gas 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.240 particles would be. Yeah, but I want to turn to 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.920 some examples that Frank Close looks at in this book, 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.839 especially his first chapter on sort of the ancient history 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.960 of the void in physics, to look at how this 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.839 idea was thought of before the modern era. So the 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:52.600 pre Socratic Greek philosopher Thales of Militias, who lived from 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.560 the seventh to the sixth century BCE, writing about the 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.560 idea of emptiness or void without substance, is actually kind 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.320 of tempted to ask can there be such a thing 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.880 as nothing? If someone is able to think about it, 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.039 wouldn't thinking about it mean it was something? And again 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.279 this raises an interesting question for me. I mean, my 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:18.240 initial reaction is just like, well, no, you know, so 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.000 imagine a container with empty space in it. I don't 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.320 think by thinking about that we change the nature of 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.440 what's in the container. But this does kind of raise 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.120 the specter of like if there could be a vacuum 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.520 for people like Thelees. Maybe this has almost more sort 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:38.320 of totalizing cosmic implications, that the ability of a vacuum 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.280 to exist says something about the universe as a whole, 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.760 not just one region of the universe, say inside of 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.160 a glass bottle or something. So that's one level in 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.960 which I respond. But then on the other hand, I 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.920 can sympathize with thoughts like this knowing some things about 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.080 modern physics, because in a very real sense, empty space 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.039 is I think I can make the argument that it 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.839 is not nothing. Empty space is something even though it 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.040 is not matter. So this may come from a failure 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:14.080 to distinguish between space and a concept like nothingness, in 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.760 which case, like if you're imagining space is something like 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:22.280 space has properties, then in fact it couldn't be nothing, 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:24.280 which is what Theyley's was thinking about. 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:29.240 Yeah, this perhaps distinction between nothingness and emptiness, this whole 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.720 thing about thinking about it making it maybe less nothing. 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:35.560 This reminds me of another paper I was looking at 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.720 being in nothingness in Greek and ancient Chinese philosophy by 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:43.200 Giming shein Philosophy East and West, nineteen fifty one. This 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:47.000 author points out that in both Chinese Taoism and Greek philosophy, 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.760 you see this culmination of things in nothingness. Quote, nothingness 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.360 is the nature of being in itself, which is absolutely 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.760 transcendent and nameless. So if I'm interpreting this correctly, the 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.680 sort of dual identity of nothingness in these two different 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.880 thought systems, nothingness is ultimately that which comes before substance, 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:11.200 but also comes before human attributed meaning. So yeah, like 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.680 even thinking about even giving it a name changes the 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.160 nothingness of it, at least from these perspectives. 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.440 Yes, though with Greek philosophy, I know it very much 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:23.960 depends on which philosopher you're talking about, because a lot 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.760 of these big Greek philosophers, they were emphatic in specifically 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.319 rejecting the idea that the universe could have come from nothingness, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.160 that there could ever have been nothingness, or that the 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:39.479 universe would ever disappear into nothingness like that was specifically 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.760 part of what the cosmological history that Theales was arguing for. 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.880 According to Thales, it would be impossible for the universe 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.120 to have come from nothingness, and it would be impossible 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.960 for it to ever become nothing. There's just sort of 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:54.520 like infinitely the same. 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.000 Stuff without giving into the exacts of it all though, 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.320 when you hear some of these sweeping x nations of what, say, 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.920 the universe would be if it were reduced to a singularity, 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.079 you know that sort of thing like, that's not nothing, 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.840 it's something, but it's such a strange and alien concept, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.719 so different from certainly our perceivable reality, that it might 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.080 as well be nothing, you know. 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:20.480 Yes, that's a good point. And of course, again to 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.679 highlight the difference between nothingness and empty space. Nothingness, I 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.080 think is much harder to define. I don't know exactly 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.040 what we mean when we talk about nothingness. It's sort 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:34.960 of a more slippery, mysterious concept. Whereas empty space. Again, 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.679 it's not that we understand everything about it, but it 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.160 is something that has physical properties and can be manipulated. 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:42.640 We know some things about. 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.760 It, yeah, like even linguistically. When we talk about vacuum, 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.520 so we've formed an artificial vacuum inside of a reinforced 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.679 steel chamber. Does that steel chamber contain a vacuum, and 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.280 therefore the vacuum is not nothing because it is a 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.600 thing by virtue of being different from everything surrounding it 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:01.040 because it is contained. 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.840 Yeah. Yeah, well that raises another question of when you 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.520 ask whether a vacuum exists in nature, I mean in reality, 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.720 Whenever we're talking about a vacuum, we're talking about essentially 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:17.760 low density gas. So and the question is how low 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.400 density does the gas have to get before you are 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.400 comfortable talking about a region of it as a vacuum. 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.360 So like and say the and we can come back 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.240 to this maybe in the next part of the series 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.440 or something. But like in interstellar voids, there are still 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:33.520 particles floating around out there. They're just very far apart 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.679 compared to much closer to stars or in the atmosphere 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.280 of a planet. But I guess the question would be 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.600 how far apart does every individual particle of matter have 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.480 to get before you say, okay, this is really a 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:50.840 total vacuum. But to come back to Theales for a second, 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:56.400 close makes an interesting argument about Thales sort of having 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:01.040 something in his cosmology similar to to a kind of 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.800 empty space, basically a primeval material or a sort of 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.720 ground state for the universe, and Close argues that for Theyales, 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:14.240 this ground state of existence was water. This belief is 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.680 related to the fact that we can observe water going 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.680 through phase changes, so we can see water as solid ice, 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:24.400 as liquid, as water vapor. And Close says that Theales 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:28.000 assumed that the diversity of forms went on from there, 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.880 and in fact water was the basis of every material 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:35.400 on Earth. Rocks, plants, air, et cetera. Are all somehow 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:40.800 water in some extrapolated form, and so he writes, quote, 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.160 space for Theales is as empty as it can be 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.400 when all matter in it has been turned into its 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:52.440 primeval form, liquid water, like the ocean. Water thus contains 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.280 every possible form of matter. 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.000 I think we've actually discussed this before. Yeah, in connection 0:11:58.080 --> 0:11:59.840 to his work, like you get down to the idea 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:04.319 of cosmic ocean, of a primordial ocean on which there 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:05.560 is no land and no being. 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:11.200 So there are definitely similarities between imagining, say, you know, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.120 the gods or the Creator or whatever hovering over a 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.439 great void and hovering over a great ocean. That those 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.120 are like similar ideas in some of these ancient cosmologies 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.680 at least, But anyway, going on from there in the 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:29.000 fifth century BCE. There's another pre Socratic Greek philosopher, Impedicles, 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:33.079 who argued that there were actually four fundamental forms of matter. 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.720 It wasn't that everything came from water like they least 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.360 thought that there was in fact earth, air, fire, and water. 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:45.040 And Empedocles notably realized that air was itself a substance 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.160 and not merely empty space. He also believed there was 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.800 no such thing as empty space. But of course the 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.360 discovery that air is not empty space does not mean 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.520 that empty space cannot exist. But then we come to 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.199 the atomists, who are very interesting in their departure from 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.280 these other ways of thinking. So the atomists included a 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:10.000 number of ancient philosophers like Lucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, who believed, 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.600 quite remarkably ahead of their time, that all matter is 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:19.520 actually made up of imperceptibly tiny particles, which they called atoms, 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.800 from the Greek word atomos, which is derived from something 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:28.440 that means like cannot be cut or basically indivisible. Now, 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.640 of course, today we know that atoms are not actually indivisible. 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:35.439 They are made up of subatomic particles like protons, neutrons, electrons, 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.760 and even protons and neutrons can be further subdivided, but 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.840 ancient atomists did not have the experimental apparatus needed to 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.280 discover this. Instead, they arrived at the atomic view of 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:52.040 physics primarily by way of thought, experiments, and everyday empirical observations, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.960 such as the observation of things like the erosion of 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.280 solid matter in nature. So if you have a great, 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.600 a grand marble staircase, and you notice that over the years, 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.400 the steps on the staircase are eroding. They're sort of 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.400 like sagging in the places where people walk on them. Well, 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.520 they're solid marble. Where are they going? How do marble 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.000 steps wear away over the ages? It must be because 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.840 each person who steps on them removes some tiny, invisibly 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.240 small amount of matter. But that invisibly small amount of matter, 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.160 those little atoms that are taken away accumulate over time 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.320 and the steps are worn down. But importantly for this discussion, 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.360 the atomists believed that there actually is such a thing 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.720 as empty space. In fact, it was core to their 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.240 theory that the universe was composed of atoms in motion. 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.800 Those atoms in motion needed a space through which to move, 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:50.480 and the atomists argued that if there were already something 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.800 in the place an atom was moving too, the atom 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.880 couldn't move there because then two atoms would be occupying 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.920 the same space at once. So there had to be 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.640 such a thing as empty space. That was the only 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.440 way that such space could come to be occupied. You know, 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:08.880 there has to be space for things to move into 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.880 where nothing can move. But after this we get back 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.160 to Aristotle, because we mentioned him at the beginning of 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.040 the first episode in this series. For better or worse, 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.840 Aristotle would pretty much have the last word on this 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.960 question for centuries to come, until experiments in the seventeenth 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.040 century would strongly challenge his decree. But Aristotle says there 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.400 is no such thing as empty space. And I was 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:37.800 reading about the Aristotelian framework or foundation for the science 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.440 of the early modern period in the Cambridge History of Science, 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.440 volume three, edited by Lindberg at All. This was in 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.720 a chapter called Physics and Foundations by the Princeton philosopher 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:53.520 Daniel Garber, and he makes some interesting points. But reading 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.240 this chapter, this is the way I was thinking about it. 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.240 So when we think of physics today, we usually of 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.480 it as a science contained within certain boundaries, like there 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.520 are certain kinds of questions that are physics questions, and 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.680 there are other questions that are not physics. Is the 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.640 study of properties of matter and energy something like that, 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:15.960 and that's a huge field, so you can ask tons 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.680 of questions in it, like how are stars formed? Or 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.480 what is the relationship between particle mass and the Higgs field. 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.480 But if in a physics journal today you tried to 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.360 submit a paper on a question like what are the 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.320 basic modes of existence? And what is being? And what 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:39.120 is the relationship of those things? To say, God, this 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.880 would probably be rejected as outside the scope of the 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.400 physical sciences, you know, like the editors would say, you 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.680 need to submit this to a different journal. However, this 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.720 attempted limitation of scope was not always present in fields 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:55.920 analogous to physics. Throughout history. There are many times in 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.680 history where these things really kind of blend together, or 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:04.240 at least philosophical foundations are thought to have relevant things 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:10.040 to say about physics theories. So these philosophical foundations might 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.800 include religious worldviews. So you could think about the way 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:17.160 that the scientists of the Islamic world in the Middle 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.800 Ages might have thought of Islam as a theological foundation 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.360 for the sciences or the way that Christian natural philosophers 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:26.800 of Europe might have thought about Christianity in the same way. 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:32.119 But in the West there was a major secular philosophical 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.560 foundation of early science also, and that was Aristotelianism, the 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:41.960 philosophy of Aristotle and a fourth century BCE Greek philosopher. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:43.800 And I think it's fair to say that for like 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:48.800 hundreds of years, in the schools and universities of medieval 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.560 through early modern Europe, the philosophy of Aristotle was not 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.040 taught in the way that it would be taught in 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.480 a college class today. Like today you would teach it 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.080 like here is an interesting piece of intellectual history, maybe 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.600 providing a certain point of view and showing the development 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.680 of how people thought about X, Y or z. Instead, 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:09.280 I think it was often taught in a way that 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.000 was closer to how people would have thought about the Bible. 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.240 It's like Aristotle said it. That pretty much settles it. 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:19.119 Yeah, yeah, So you end up with various discussions and 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:23.240 arguments coming down to either what Aristotle said or disagreements 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.800 over what Aristotle did say or meant, or what he 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.200 would have said or meant about a given topic. 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.400 Right, and to be clear, it wasn't always this way, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:36.800 but it wasn't that everybody thought Aristotle was literally infallible. 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.120 But it seems to me like he was often treated 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.320 by the Scholastics as something approaching infallibility, like it was 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.960 just ludicrous to question Aristotle, though in some cases people did. 0:18:58.119 --> 0:18:58.239 So. 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:00.919 We should discuss what Aristotle said as about the void. 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:06.399 Aristotle denies the possibility of the existence of empty space, 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.919 specifically in his book Physics Book four, and as is 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.560 so often true with these ancient philosophers, he makes his 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.800 case for the non existence of a vacuum not by 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:21.280 doing an experiment and describing it, but by cold rationiocination. 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.520 He is going to reason his way out of having 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.840 to believe in empty space. Garber, in his chapter quotes 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.119 a translation of Aristotle for one of his arguments along 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:36.000 these lines. Aristotle says, now it space or place has 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.440 three dimensions length, breadth, depth, the dimensions by which all 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:44.679 body is bounded. But the place cannot be body, for 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.320 if it were, there would be two bodies in the 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.280 same place. What in the world then, are we to 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:54.879 suppose place to be? And the implied answer is nothing, 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.520 So not to kind of interesting contradiction. It seems to 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.760 me at least that we had the atomists pointing to 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.080 the fact that two objects can't be in the same 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.120 place at the same time to prove that there must 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.359 be empty space, because remember, moving particles have to have 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.480 unoccupied space to move into. And here Aristotle is using 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.400 the same premise in a way to say that space 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.560 cannot exist independent of matter, or else it would have 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.040 to occupy the same place as matter at the same time. 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:30.240 But coming back to close, he summarizes Aristotle's arguments by saying, quote, 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.600 so for Aristotle, logics seem to require that empty space 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.919 cannot be something and therefore is non existent. He defined 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.800 the void as where there is no body, and since 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.159 the basic elements of things exist eternally, there can be 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.879 no place that is completely empty. Aristotle may have been 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.800 getting some mileage here out of confusion over the difference 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:57.159 between empty space as something and like nothingness as in 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:58.840 a way meaning non existence. 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:00.160 Now. 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.400 Garber, in his Physics and Foundations chapter writes that by 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:06.720 the thirteenth century, writers in the Scholastic tradition in Europe 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:11.679 who believed in Aristotelian dogmas had begun assuming the existence 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:15.960 of a natural force known as horror vacui, again a 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.160 phrase that Aristotle himself did not use, but which aligned 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.399 with his teaching on this matter, that nature would not 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.760 permit a vacuum, and the scholastic writers characterize this as 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.959 a force in nature which prevents vacuo from emerging, almost 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.000 like there's sort of a law of nature something going 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:36.679 on that will not let a vacuum be created, and 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.119 thus forces matter to fill in the gaps. So you 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:42.280 can pump out that container as much as you want, 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:47.040 but horror vacue will prevent it from actually being empty inside. 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.280 And another interesting thing I wanted to flag here is 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:55.200 that Garber notes a conflict between this Aristotelian dogma and 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.879 some religious reasoning that arose in the Church in the 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:03.240 thirteenth century that have led to the famous condemnations of 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:07.240 twelve seventy seven, where we've got a bishop condemning Aristotle. 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.560 So to read from Garber here quote one consequence was 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.720 that without space outside of the finite world, not even 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.680 God would seem to be able to move the universe 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.280 if he chose to do so. This apparent consequence of 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:26.920 Aristotilian doctrine was rejected in the famous condemnation of Aristotle 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:31.359 by Etienne Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, in twelve seventy seven, 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.480 and then quoting in translation, here we condemned the proposition 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:39.000 that God could not move the heavens with rectilinear motion, 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:43.600 and the reason is that a vacuum would remain so 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:47.000 Garber says, this really kind of put these scholastic Aristotilians 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:50.600 in a bind, because in some ways they had to 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.600 defend the possibility of some kind of empty space existing 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:58.639 in the universe, at least potentially for theological reasons, but 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:02.320 they didn't want to vile the principles of Aristotle, to 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:07.920 which they were loyal. But anyway, going on, Frank Close 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:10.840 makes an interesting argument that I think I would agree 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:13.560 with that we shouldn't be too hard on the prevailing 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:20.200 Aristotelian belief in horror vacae because without special equipment and experiments, 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:22.880 I don't know, it really just seems like that from 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:27.000 everyday existence, like it seems like reality prevents voids from forming. 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:30.880 Examples given by the ancient philosophers were things like, hey, 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:33.240 you suck all the air out of an empty wine skin, 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:37.320 the wine skin collapses like it shrinks in removing the 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:40.040 air does not result in a void inside the skin. 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:44.040 It causes the walls of the skin to shrink proportional 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:46.600 to the amount of air you're able to remove. You 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:49.399 could also use this belief in nature's hatred for the 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.040 vacuum to explain the workings of pumps and siphons. So 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:56.120 beyond the fact that Aristotle said it, it just kind 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:58.360 of seemed right with everyday experience. 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:01.400 Yeah, I mean, and you're not walking around your home 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:05.160 and just suddenly walking into a vacuum, right, Like, even 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:10.439 the empty rooms are are full, They're teeming with matter. 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:13.760