Clare’s Reviews > Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics > Status Update

This is a hugely important work, but it is an absolute pain in the ass to read.

...And, yes, here we are in the 1600s, and we've fully transitioned from Latin to long blocks of antiquated French.

Which means this book now contains untranslated Greek, Latin, Hebrew, German, and French. Interestingly, all the sections originally written in Arabic have been conveniently translated into English. I'ma chalk that one up to Eurocentrism.

Well I've figured out why Google Translate was doing so poorly at translating Latin: it's because it's not all Latin. Apparently folks just kind of sometimes mixed their Latin with some Old/Middle French... I'm looking at you Huygens.

Henceforth I spread confident wings to space; I fear no barrier of crystal or of glass; I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite. And while I rise from my own globe to others and penetrate ever further through the eternal field, that which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me.
-- Bruno, dreaming of space travel in the 1580s. :)

I never learned much about Islamic philosophy, but apparently the Kalām includes a theory of atomism that is striking close to modern quantum theory. Atoms (i.e. the smallest possible indivisible particle) don't have extension on their own. Extension, or dimensionally, arises as a sort of emergent property from the interrelationship of these discreet particles. Time, space, and matter all arise in this way.

This contains an absurd amount of Latin, which Google Translate is failing spectacularly at, you know, translating. So now I'm slowly piecing things together by dredging up all the tangential Latin I've osmosed through years of Catholic education. I'm doing surprisingly well, though honestly I'm persevering through sheer pique at this point.