““Bodies influence the space that surrounds them; they tell us whatever we can learn about that space. Does this mean that, possibly, there is no such thing as space by itself? Could it be that space is nothing but a theoretical construction invented for the purpose of giving the observed world an ordered framework? Could it be that we perceive as the reality of space is nothing but the influence of abstract laws of nature on the behavior of massive objects or bodies? That space is wedded to these bodies and will vanish if they do? This is a respectable position to take. For more than two thousand years, it has coexisted with the view of space as the primary stage that permits material objects to make their appearance. Natural philosophers who theorized about space can easily be charted on a scale between these two extreme positions. On the left is Thales of Miletus, whose "space" is nothing but one shapeless fluid; on the other side, there is Democritus, with his empty space in which material objects whir around. Leibniz on the left, Von guericke and Newton on the right. Albert Einstein juxtaposed these two concepts of space as, on one hand, the positional qualities of the physical world (left) and, on the other, the container of all physical objects (right) in his left-hand case, there is no space without an object; on the right, such an object cannot be thought of except in conjunction with the space that surrounds it-thereby assigning to space a higher reality than that possessed by objects.””
