Who said, "nature abhors a vacuum"?

In physics, horror vacui, or plenism, is commonly stated as "Nature abhors a vacuum". It is a postulate attributed to Aristotle, who articulated a belief that nature contains no vacuums because the denser surrounding material continuum would immediately fill the rarity of an incipient void. He also argued against the void in a more abstract sense (as "separable"), for example, that by definition a void, itself, is nothing, and following Plato, nothing can rightly be said to exist.

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16 Comments

Jerry Kimball

Don't really know about nature abhorring a vacuum, but every dog and cat I have ever know definitely abhor vacuums!

David Coe

Philip Summerhayes, Uh, but THIS question was about "vacuum"

timwhitestevens

Aristotle was a charlatan who set science back thousands of years. Specifically: 1st. biology 500 years, Aristotle said ones soul was in their liver which was in their stomach, while his contemporary Plato said ones soul was in their brain which is in their head. 2nd. astronomy 1000 years, Aristotle said the sun goes around the earth, while his contemporary Aristarchus said the earth went around the sun. 3rd. chemistry 2000 years, Aristotle said everything was made of earth, air, fire and water, while his contemporary Democirtus said everything was made of atoms. 4th physics 1000 years, Aristotle said that heavier objects fell faster because they had more desire to get back to the earth, I do not know the name of his contemporary who disagreed with him. Since Aristotle was more famous and renowned than his contemporaries, his views were taken as truth. Then Aristotle became the main or sole teacher of Alexander the Great, who then made these ideas into law.

timwhitestevens

Dennis Walker, I agree.

Louise C.

anneli, I have a birthday ending in a zero coming up so I just may buy myself one.

anneli

anneli, if he had

anneli

Magpie, Just tell hi your back hurts like mine did when vacuuming and also say it's for his own good. It's not lazy, you can do much better and useful things than vacuuming. I suppose if had to do that, maybe he would change his mind.

stevenbtabak

If You’re a Star Trek Fan Then You Know that Captain Spock Said in STVI The Undiscovered Country

Louise C.

anneli, I would love one but alas my husband calls it being lazy using one of those, but I am still trying to talk him into allowing one in our house.