Tracking Space

in the chronic blinking of time

The universe has a soundtrack and

that soundtrack is played on space itself,

because space can wobble like a drum.

〰 Janna Levin 〰

Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Prelude: Space in Time

Space is the final frontier.

〰 Startrek 〰

In September 2024 I published a wordcast on the topic of time, sparking the following request from

Jenna Newell Hiott

, “Now, if you could please write something similar about Space, that would be great.”

Happy to pick up this suggestion, Jenna… Having said that, the word space proved to be trickier than expected ~ and full of surprises ~ at least six, to be precise. Please fasten your seat-belts for this ride through the wordcast of space, it’s going to be a wild one.

1st surprise ~ Space wobbles like a drum and has a SOUNDTRACK

Space as a concept as we think of it today, didn’t exist in the mythopoeic ways of thinking of the ancient world. Or perhaps our ancestors did think about it and used different words for it? Who knows…

What we now call space (= outer space of the universe) was called khaos in Ancient Greece, and chaos in Ancient Rome, and defined as that which is vast, wide and open.

For the Incas, space and time was a single concept called |pacha|. The literal meaning of the Quechua word pacha is place, land, soil, region, and period of time.

So what’s the lifestory of the word space itself in English and other European languages? Let’s take a look:::

Space [from Latin spatium = room, area, distance, stretch of time] came into English around 1300 via Old French espace = period of time, distance, interval.

From early 14 c. space was used in English in the sense of amount or extent of time.

2nd surprise ~ Space originally meant TIME

From mid 14 c. the word is also used to refer to the distance between objects. From late 14 c. onwards the meaning of space extends to ground, land, territory, extension in 3D.

By early 15 c. space can also mean an assigned position. From 1670s space can mean blank type to separate words in print.

By 1723 space has extended its meaning to include stellar depths, immense emptiness between the worlds as a characteristic of the universe.

1883 marks the first known use of euclidean space, the technical term for what we now associate with 3D geometrical space.

The 20th century sees a flurry of new words using space as an element attached to other words: space age, spacecraft, spaceflight, spaceman, space race, spaceship, spaces shuttle, space station, spacesuit, space travel.

Before the 20th century, space is used mainly in the sense of an interval, a gap between events or objects, or more explicitly a void ~ as it has been known in Norse mythology for a thousand years or more. Now, space can be synonymous with universe, room, area, region, locality, gap, interval, blank, period, a point in time.

Space ~ a void? A gap? A blank emptiness? How can that be? Where did anyone get this idea from?

3rd Surprise ~ Space is NOT EMPTY

Since ancient times, humans have known that what we now refer to as ‘outer space’ is full of stuff. Quantum physicist David Bohm has confirmed that “Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The universe is not separate from this cosmic sea of energy.”

Nasa Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

Nocturne: Chronos and the Birth of Spacetime

First of all chaos was born;

Then, after him, wide-bosomed Earth,

a sure, eternal dwelling-place

for all the deathless gods who rule

Olympus’ snowy peaks.

〰 Hesiod 〰

“Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives.” Jean Luc Picard says to Number One somewhere on Startrek, sounding rather abysmal, as if time was a lifelong enemy of the human race.

And if time and space are one, what does that tell us about our relationship with space?

But then Picard adds his personal more charming definition, giving room for hope and appreciation: “I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. After all Number One, we're only mortal.”

I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey

and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again.

〰 Jean Luc Picard 〰

As mentioned in my previous wordcast Portals of Time, according to the Orphic tradition, Chronos emerged self-formed at the dawn of creation. The primordial Greek god, counterpart of the Roman Saturn, became identified with the concept of time; not the linear time ~ that predator who stalks us all our lives ~ but eternal spacetime.

While the name of Chronos has gone down in history for the gruesome cannibalistic behaviour of devouring his own divine children as soon as they were born, he has also created the silver egg of the universe, from which all other life is born. And our human ancestors are said to have experienced a Golden Age under his rulership.

“There was no pain, death, disease, hunger, or any other evil. Mankind was happy and children were born autochthonously, meaning they were actually born out of the soil.”

When Zeus defeated his child eating father, and subsequently took over the reins on Mount Olympus, he put an end to mankind's happiness. He also literally changed the course of time!

Since Chronos was the god of time, and time is eternal, he represents infinity ~ time without beginning or end. Being an immortal god, he also cannot die. His name survives in many languages, including English, in a range of words:

Chronic [from Greek khronos = time] persisting for a long time, or consistently recurring

Chronicle [from Greek khronos] a factual or fictitious written account of important or historical events in the order of their occurrence

Chronograph [from Greek khronos + graphos = writing] an instrument for recording time with great accuracy; stopwatch

Chronology [from Greek khronos + logos = word] the arrangement of events or dates in the order of their occurrence

Chronometer [from Greek khronos + metron = measure] an instrument for measuring time accurately, in spite of motion or variations in temperature, humidity, and air pressure.

Ironically, all these words are associated with linear time, finite time measured by humans ~ the opposite of eternal spacetime, which would be much more fitting under the patronage of Kairos, the grandson of Chronos.

When Chronos emerged at the dawn of creation, he gave birth to spacetime, which is cyclical, i.e. it has no beginning and no end, but which makes measurable human time and space on earth possible.

4th Surprise ~ If space was time, then CHRONOS was also the god of space

Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

Tempo: Kairos and the Birth of the Blink

But if you come at just any time, I shall never know

at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.

〰 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 〰

Eternal spacetime is difficult to grasp for the human mind, because our experience of life on earth is limited in space and time. Some sources claim that the Ancient Greek language had no word for ‘weather’ until kairos was adopted and used in the sense of both time and weather.

The Ancient Greek people, however, did have a whole swarm of deities and divine spirits representing different phenomena related to meteorological and atmospheric conditions. Their terminology for what we now call ‘weather’ must have been far more differentiated than we can imagine. From spirits for breezes to the god of the storm, and from the goddess of dawn to the nymphs of the sunset, they named and personified every type of wind, element, star constellation, and season.

We do know that Kairos had a Roman counterpart called Tempus, the divine personification of temporary time.

The word kairos didn’t enter the English language until the 1930s. Within this relatively brief period, its meaning and application has been adapted to our 21st century mindset, mixed up with many thoughts and theories born in the 2nd millennium.

In Ancient Greece, Kairos was the deity of the fleeting moment, which basically refers to a whole human life time. In contemporary language, this meaning has been swiftly translated into the “right or opportune moment.”

The original kairos was associated with a critical moment for action, because when time is limited, the timing of anything can and does make a big difference. In contemporary English, kairos was initially employed in fields such as rhetoric, theology, and philosophy to discuss timing and opportunity.

More recently kairos has become a popular term in the fields of marketing and promoting commercial ventures or political campaigns, highlighting a sense of urgency, and upping the pressure towards action. The word is being used effectively to focus on crucial timing, and unique opportunity, while implying fear of loss.

Kairos [from Greek kairos = temporary time] is defined as a moment in time when conditions are right for the accomplishment of certain actions; an opportune and decisive moment.

The timing of kairos generates a certain pace, a rhythm, a tempo.

Tempo [from Italian tempo = time] is a direct descendant of the Roman Tempus, the deity of finite time. Tempo is measured or limited by time. Human life is measured in our temporal existence, which is limited, of short duration, opposite to eternal.

Tempo measures the pace or speed of a musical piece or passage. And with the rate of speed, the sound of music can transport listeners and performers into different spaces.

5th Surprise ~ Space is infinite, but we can only experience it through LIMITATION

Chiara David on Unsplash

Finale: Sounding the Gravity of Spacetime

How did it get so late so soon?

It's night before it's afternoon.

December is here before it's June.

My goodness how the time has flewn.

How did it get so late so soon?

〰 Dr. Seuss 〰

In her book Black Hole Survival Guide American cosmologist Janna Levin makes a surprising revelation when she tells her readers that “There are effectively two kinds of physical law: one for gravity and one for matter.”

As a non-physicist, I am baffled by such a statement. I always thought of physics as a bewildering jungle of physical laws and obscure equations to represent them. When exploring spacetime, we seem to be entering a whole other dimension.

“We have equated gravity with spacetime,” Levin explains. According to current state-of-the-art scientific understanding, the entire world-as-we-know-it in all its complexity emerges from this elemental simplicity.

6th Surprise ~ Spacetime is GRAVITY

How did humans manage to make it all so complicated?

Here is my mythopoeic summary of what happened.

When the Big Bang gave birth to spacetime, 
opening the cosmic arena for the living universe and earth, 
space and time were born in both realms, the eternal and the temporal. 
On planet earth, humans were given plentiful space to breathe and lifetimes to exist. 
BeingSpace and MeTime were abundant and free. 
As with all natural resources, BeSpaces and MeTimes seemed infinite 
and worthless, easily missed and stifled with an infinite wishlist
Humans cleared spaces in time to create room and place. 
They annexed vast areas; 
they fenced free space and clocked time.
They made room for living and tables for timing; 
they counted bedrooms and scheduled timeslots.
They measured legroom and sold their freedom.
They competed for space and ran out of time.
Elbowroom became finite, served at a premium.
Until one day… 
Humans offered BeSpace and MeTime 
in cyberspace, 
they assumed infinite,
for a price.
While in the spacetime of BeSpace and MeTime 
some are gambling on the laws of gravity  and matter, 
there may still be time and space to skirt 
the event horizon of that black hole. 

We do not know whether spacetime stretches forever

or wraps back onto itself, compact and finite.

We might never know.

The story may have no end.

〰 Janna Levin 〰