Development of the Concept of Space up to Newton

Abstract

The concept of space, ubiquitous among all humans from birth, has changed profoundly in the course of the history of Western civilization, the only one to be considered here. An important contribution to this change was the theoretical elaborations of the philosophers of nature and mathematicians, started in Ancient Greece. Here, the process is considered up to Newton, when the concept of space for physicists, who then replaced the traditional philosophers of nature, took on a connotation that remained substantially undisputed for two centuries—that of absolute space.

Keywords

• space
• mathematics
• natural philosophy
• void
• atomists
• Patrizi