New Curious Architecture

Similarly, if the same vessel is filled with water and then closed or plugged at the top so that the entrance of air is denied, the water inside will remain suspended. It will not flow out from the bottom. This is because a vacuum would otherwise follow. According to Anaxagoras, however, a vacuum is only found in the air, which is a corporeal but nonetheless invisible substance.

Besides these philosophers, MELISSUS Melissus of Samos (5th century BCE) was a philosopher who argued that the universe is a single, unchanging entity and denied the possibility of a vacuum. also presents himself to show the vacuum or emptiness of the world with the following reasoning:

He says that all things that move or grow do so in a certain and determined place. That place is either full or empty. If it is full, there would be two, three, four, or even infinite bodies in the same place. Likewise, a larger thing could exist inside a smaller one, and equal and unequal things could occupy the same space. All of these things are contrary to nature and impossible.

From this it is further argued that all motion and growth happen in a vacuum. Therefore, such a thing must necessarily exist in the nature of things so that bodies can move within it. Furthermore, by this same reasoning (in his opinion), the immobility of the world is established with certainty. Otherwise, this universe would have to move into a vacuum, which is an idea scholars find absurd. From this he concludes that every full or corporeal thing must necessarily exist in another place that lacks a body. This place is nothing other than the often-mentioned vacuum of the universe.

Experience further bears witness to this. A wineskin filled with wine can be placed into a large jar, even though that same wine, without the skins, would be enough to fill the jar on its own. This would be impossible without the compression original: "condensatione" of the vacuum within the wine.

A similar proof is offered by a vessel filled with very finely sifted ash. It still accepts just as much water

as it would normally hold if the ashes were removed. From this we must finally conclude that a certain vacuum exists within those ashes, and consequently, in the world.

CHAPTER II.

Aristotle enters the arena against the listed philosophers: Democritus, Leucippus, Anaxagoras, and the others who establish a vacuum in the universe. He is armed with four different arguments. However, for the sake of brevity, Straton of Lampsacus Straton was a tutor to Ptolemy II and a director of the Lyceum who focused heavily on natural philosophy. condensed these into two: one regarding motion and the other regarding the constriction or compression of bodies.

First, Aristotle says it does not follow that if motion exists, a vacuum must also exist. Although nothing can move in a space that is already full, we must observe the way in which bodies yield to one another and leave a place for motion.

Thus, a stone thrown into the air moves, but not as if it were in a vacuum. Instead, the air in front of it yields to the stone because it is a heavier mass. The air then flows back behind it in an instant to prevent a vacuum from forming. This is the same way we see water yield its place to a ship, which is a heavy body. Though not strictly accurate, the ship moves forward as if it were in a vacuum.

Regarding the second argument, the claim that a vacuum is mixed into things to allow them to be squeezed together is even weaker.

For everything that is condensed, constricted, or compressed contains another body of a thinner nature within itself. When pressed in the manner described, this thinner body exits through the passages and pores in which it previously hid.