I Can’t Sleep - Space | Gentle Bedtime Reading for Sleep

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Ease into rest with this calm bedtime reading on space, a peaceful way to quiet the mind and ease insomnia. Benjamin’s soothing voice explores the vastness of the cosmos, from the nature of outer space itself to humanity’s study of the stars, planets, and galaxies beyond. His gentle cadence transforms the mysteries of the universe into soft, fact-filled narration that helps reduce stress and settle the mind. This is not whispering or hypnosis—just calm storytelling and education designed to bring peace during sleepless nights. Press play, close your eyes, and let the wonder of space carry you into dreams. Want More? Request a Topic: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/request-a-topic Ad-Free Episodes: https://icantsleep.supportingcast.fm/ Shop Sleep-Friendly Products: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/sponsors Join the Discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/myhGhVUhn7 This content is derived from the Wikipedia article on Space, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. Read the full article: Wikipedia – Space. Happy sleeping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to a Glassbox media podcast. What if I told you that most of the modern day self-help advice you've been hearing could actually make you worse? The key to a better life isn't about feel-good gimmicks that sound catchy. The Mentally Stronger Podcast gives you access to a licensed therapist who shares science-backed tools that will actually change your life. Hi, I'm Amy Morin, psychotherapist, mental strength trainer, and international best-selling author. In each episode, we cover research-back strategies, like how to stop relying on willpower and start creating habits for lasting change. And the five mental strength-building exercises you can do from your couch.

I also speak to world-class experts like Dr. Nicole Kane, who shares how to permanently heal anxiety by addressing the root cause. With over 200 episodes in our catalog, this podcast is for you if you're ready to crush self-doubt, conquer challenges, and become stronger than ever with therapist-approved strategies that can change your life. Listen to Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast, where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. I'm your host, Benjamin Boster. Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events

have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it with time to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as space-time. The concept of space is considered to be a fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself and entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.

Debates concerning the nature, essence, and the mode of existence of space date back to antiquity, namely to treatises like the Temaeus of Plato, or Socrates in his reflections on what the Greeks called Cora, i.e. space. Or in the physics of Aristotle, book 4 Delta, in the definition of topos, i.e. place, or in the geometrical conception of place, as space qua extension in the discourse on place, Kalfi al-Makhan, of the 11th century Arab polymath al-hazen. Many of these classical philosophical questions were discussed in the Renaissance and then reformulated in the 17th century, particularly during the early development of classical mechanics. In Isaac Newton's view, space was absolute, in the sense that it existed permanently and independently of

whether there was any matter in the space. Other natural philosophers, notably Gottfried Leipniz, thought instead that space was in fact a collection of relations between objects, given by their distance and direction from one another. In 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 metaphysical 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 the experience of space in his critique of pure reason as being

a subjective, pure a priori form of intuition. In the 19th and 20th centuries, mathematicians began to examine geometries that are non-Euclidean, in which space is conceived as curved rather than flat. 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 this shape of space. Philosophy of Space Galilee 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 in 1687. Newton's theories about space and time helped him explain the movement of objects. While his theory of space is considered the most influential in physics, it emerged from his predecessor's 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 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. Galilee 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 Galilei, 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. René Descartes. Descartes set out to replace 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 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 Ergosum, 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 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 a as the Cartesian dualism. Leipniz and Newton. Following Galilee and Descartes during the 17th century, the philosophy of space and time revolved around the ideas of Godfrey 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 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 Leipniz, then, space was an idealized 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 a similar way to the relations between family members. Although people and the family are related to one another, their relations do not exist independently of the people. Leipniz 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 the identity of indiscernible, 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 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 motion. 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 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, the bucket argument was considered decisive in showing that space must exist independently. of matter, Kant. In the 18th century, the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant developed a theory of knowledge, in which knowledge about space can both be a priori and synthetic. According to Kant, knowledge about space is

synthetic, and that statements about space are not simply true by virtue of the meaning of the words in the statement. In his work, Kant rejected the view that space must be either a substance or relation. Instead, he came to the conclusion that space and time are not discovered by humans to be objective features of the world, but imposed by us as part of a framework for organizing experience. Non-Euclidean geometry. Euclid's elements contain 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 in which there is a straight line, L1, and a point P, not on L1,

there is exactly one straight line, L2, on the plane that passes through the point P, and is parallel to the straight line, L1. 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 other axioms. Around 1830, though, the Hungarian Janos Bolliéi, and the Russian Nikolai Ivanovich Lobokchevsky 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 sums of angles in a triangle is less than 180 degrees, and the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is greater than pi. In the 1850s, Bernard Reimann developed an equivalent theory of elliptical geometry, in which no parallel lines passed through p. In this geometry, triangles have more than 180 degrees, and circles have a ratio of circumference to diameter that is less than pie. Gauss and Puncaire Although there was a prevailing Kantian consensus at the time, once non-Euclidean geometries had been formalized, some began to wonder whether or not physical space is curved.

Carl Frederick 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 mountaintops in Germany. Henri Ponquare, a French mathematician and physicist of 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 a way that all objects expand and contract in similar proportions in different places on the sphere. With a suitable falloff and 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 a plane or sphere, and Pancore argued the same as 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. Einstein

In 1905, Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity, which led to the concept that space and time can be viewed as a single construct known as spacetime. In this theory, the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers, which has a result that two events that appear simultaneous to one in 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 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 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 behavior of binary pulsars, confirming the predictions of Einstein's theories, and non-Euclidean geometry is usually used to describe spacetime. Mathematics In modern mathematics, spaces are defined as sets with some added structure. They are frequently described as different types of manifolds, which are spaces that locally approximate to the Euclidean space, and where the properties are defined largely on local connectedness of points that lie on the manifold. There are, however, many diverse,

mathematical objects that are called spaces. For example, vector spaces such as function spaces may have infinite numbers of independent dimensions and a notion of distance very different from Euclidean space. And topological spaces replace the concept of distance with a more abstract idea of nearness. Physics Space is one of the few fundamental quantities in physics, meaning that it cannot be defined via other quantities because nothing more fundamental 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 space time called Minkowski's space. The idea behind space time is that time is hyperbolicial. orthogonal to each of the three spatial dimensions. Relativity. Before 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 space-time. It turns out that distances in space

or in time separately are not invariant with respect to Lawrence coordinate transformations. But distances in Minkowski space-time along spacetime intervals are which justifies the name. In addition, time and space dimensions should not be viewed as exactly equivalent in Minkowski space-time. One can freely move in space, but not in time. Thus, time and space coordinates are treated differently both in special relative, or 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 is postulated that space time is

geometrically distorted, curved, near to gravitational significant masses. One consequence of this postulate which follows from the equations of general relativity is the prediction of moving ripples of space-time 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 the LIGO and Virgo collaborations. LIGO scientists reported the first such direct observation of gravitational waves on 14th of September 2015. Cosmology

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 is not known, but space is known to be expanding very rapidly due to the cosmic inflation. Spatial measurement. The measurement of physical space has long been important.

Although earlier societies had developed measuring systems, the international system of units, S.I. 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 a standard meter or simply meter, is defined as the distance traveled by light in space. a vacuum during a time interval of exactly 1 to 299,792,458 of a second. This definition, coupled with the 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. Geographical Space Geography is the branch of science, concerned with identifying and describing, and described, places on Earth, utilizing spatial awareness to try to understand why things exist in specific locations. Cartography is the mapping of spaces to allow better navigation for visualization purposes and act as a locational device. Geostatistics apply statistical concepts to collected spatial data of Earth to create and 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 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 have an impact on human and cultural behavior, being an important factor in architecture, where it will impact on 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 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. In psychology. Psychologists first began to study the way space is perceived in the middle of the 19th century. Those now concerned with such studies regarded 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 study to include amoral perception and object permanence. The perception of surroundings 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 egorephobia, 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 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.

in the social sciences. Space has been studied in the social sciences from the perspectives of Marxism, feminism, post-mordenism, post-colonialism, urban theory, and critical geography. These theories account for the effect of the history of colonialism, transatlantic slavery, and globalization on our understanding and experience of space in place. These theories account for the effect of the history of colonialism, transatlantic slavery, and globalization, 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 LaFabre's The Production of Space. In this book, LaFabra applies Marxist ideas about the production of commodities and accumulation

of capital to discuss space as a social product. His focus 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 in 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 and urban centers, all of which annihilate distances and affect our perception of linearity and distance. In his book, Third Space,

Edward Soha described space and spatiality as an integral and neglected aspect of what he calls the trilectics 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 science, studies 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. The Fabra's lived space in Sohah's third space are terms that account for the complex ways in which humans understand and navigate place, which first,

space and second space, Sohaz terms for material and imagined spaces respectively, do not fully encompass. Post-colonial theorist, Homi Baba's concept of third space is different from Sohaz's third space, even though both terms offer a way to think outside the terms of binary logic. Baba's third space is the space in which hybrid cultural forms and identities exist. In his theories, the term hybrid described,

new cultural forms that emerged through the interaction between colonizer and colonized.