Rideing Wave on a surface water sport

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Surfing is a surface water sport in which the wave rider, referred to as a surfer, rides on the forward or deep face of a moving wave, which is usually carrying the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitable for surfing are primarily found in the ocean, but can also be found in lakes or in rivers in the form of a standing wave or tidal bore. However, surfers can also utilize artificial waves such as those from boat wakes and the waves created in artificial wave pools.
The term surfing refers to the act of riding a wave, regardless of whether the wave is ridden with a board or without a board, and regardless of the stance used. The native peoples of the Pacific, for instance, surfed waves on alaia, paipo, and other such craft, and did so on their belly and knees. The modern-day definition of surfing, however, most often refers to a surfer riding a wave standing up on a surfboard; this is also referred to as stand-up surfing.

Another prominent form of surfing is body boarding, when a surfer rides a wave on a bodyboard, either lying on their belly, drop knee, or sometimes even standing up on a body board. Other types of surfing include knee boarding, surf matting (riding inflatable mats), and using foils. Body surfing, where the wave is surfed without a board, using the surfer’s own body to catch and ride the wave, is very common and is considered by some to be the purest form of surfing.

Three major subdivisions within standing-up surfing are long boarding and short boarding and these two have several major differences, including the board design and length, the riding style, and the kind of wave that is ridden.

In tow-in surfing (most often, but not exclusively, associated with big wave surfing), a motorized water vehicle, such as a personal watercraft, tows the surfer into the wave front, helping the surfer match a large wave’s speed, which is generally a higher speed than a self-propelled surfer can produce. Surfing-related sports such as paddle boarding and sea kayaking do not require waves, and other derivative sports such as kite surfing and windsurfing rely primarily on wind for power, yet all of these platforms may also be used to ride waves.

Recently with the use of V-drive boats, Wakesurfing, in which one surfs on the wake of a boat, has emerged. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized a 78 feet (23.8 m) wave ride by Garrett McNamara at Nazaré, Portugal as the largest wave ever surfed, although this remains an issue of much contention amongst many surfers, given the difficulty of measuring a constantly changing mound of water.
References to surf riding on planks and single canoe hulls are also verified for pre-contact Samoa, where surfing was called fa’ase’e or se’egalu, and Tonga, far pre-dating the practice of surfing by Hawaiians and eastern Polynesians by over a thousand years.

In July 1885, three teenage Hawaiian princes took a break from their boarding school, St. Mathew’s Hall in San Mateo, and came to cool off in Santa Cruz, California. There, David Kawananakoa, Edward Keliiahonui and Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana’ole surfed the mouth of the San Lorenzo River on custom-shaped redwood boards, according to surf historians Kim Stoner and Geoff Dunn.

In 1907, the eclectic interests of the land baron Henry E. Huntington brought the ancient art of surfing to the California coast. While on vacation, Huntington had seen Hawaiian boys surfing the island waves. Looking for a way to entice visitors to the area of Redondo Beach, where he had heavily invested in real estate, he hired a young Hawaiian to ride surfboards. George Freeth decided to revive the art of surfing, but had little success with the huge 16-foot hardwood boards that were popular at that time. When he cut them in half to make them more manageable, he created the original “Long board”, which made him the talk of the islands. To the delight of visitors, Freeth exhibited his surfing skills twice a day in front of the Hotel Redondo.

Use of Drone to Minimize the Violence in Highways

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An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, as an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), or by several other names, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. The flight of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy: either under remote control by a human operator, or fully or intermittently autonomously, by onboard computers.

Compared to manned aircraft, UAVs are often preferred for missions that are too “dull, dirty or dangerous” for humans. They originated mostly in military applications, although their use is expanding in commercial, scientific, recreational, agricultural, and other applications, such as policing and surveillance, aerial photography, agriculture and drone racing. Civilian drones now vastly outnumber military drones, with estimates of over a million sold by 2015.

The term drone, more widely used by the public, was coined in reference to the resemblance of dumb-looking navigation and loud-and-regular motor sounds of old military unmanned aircraft to the male bee. The term has encountered strong opposition from aviation professionals and government regulators.

“Worker bees can leave.
Even drones can fly away.
The Queen is their slave.”
— Chuck Palahniuk

The term unmanned aircraft system was adopted by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Federal Aviation Administration in 2005 according to their Unmanned Aircraft System Roadmap 2005–2030. The International Civil Aviation Organization and the British Civil Aviation Authority adopted this term, also used in the European Union’s Single-European-Sky  Air-Traffic-Management Research roadmap for 2020. This term emphasizes the importance of elements other than the aircraft. It includes elements such as ground control stations, data links and other support equipment. A similar term is an unmanned-aircraft vehicle system remotely piloted aerial vehicle, remotely piloted aircraft system. Many similar terms are in use.

A UAV is defined as a “powered, aerial vehicle that does not carry a human operator, uses aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or nonlethal payload”. Therefore, missiles are not considered UAVs because the vehicle itself is a weapon that is not reused, though it is also unmanned and in some cases remotely guided.

The relation of UAVs to remote controlled model aircraft is unclear. UAVs may or may not include model aircraft.[citation needed] Some jurisdictions base their definition on size or weight, however, the US Federal Aviation Administration defines any unmanned flying craft as a UAV regardless of size. A radio-controlled aircraft becomes a drone with the addition of an autopilot artificial intelligence (AI), and ceases to be a drone when the AI is removed.
The earliest attempt at a powered UAV was A. M. Low’s “Aerial Target” in 1916. Nikola Tesla described a fleet of unmanned aerial combat vehicles in 1915. Advances followed during and after World War I, including the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane. The first scaled remote piloted vehicle was developed by film star and model-airplane enthusiast Reginald Denny in 1935. More emerged during World War II – used both to train antiaircraft gunners and to fly attack missions. Nazi Germany produced and used various UAV aircraft during the war. Jet engines entered service after World War II in vehicles such as the Australian GAF Jindivik, and Teledyne Ryan Firebee I of 1951, while companies like Beechcraft offered their Model 1001 for the U.S. Navy in 1955. Nevertheless, they were little more than remote-controlled airplanes until the Vietnam War.

In 1959, the U.S. Air Force, concerned about losing pilots over hostile territory, began planning for the use of unmanned aircraft.Planning intensified after the Soviet Union shot down a U-2 in 1960. Within days, a highly classified UAV program started under the code name of “Red Wagon”. The August 1964 clash in the Tonkin Gulf between naval units of the U.S. and North Vietnamese Navy initiated America’s highly classified UAVs

Power of Capturing the Moment in Mobile Devices

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A smartphone is a mobile phone with an advanced mobile operating system which combines features of a personal computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use. Smartphones, which are usually pocket-sized, typically combine the features of a cell phone, such as the ability to receive and make phone calls and text messages, with those of other popular digital mobile devices. Other features typically include a personal digital assistant (PDA) for making appointments in a calendar, media player, video games, GPS navigation unit, digital camera, and digital video camera. Most smartphones can access the Internet and can run a variety of third-party software components. They typically have a color graphical user interface screen that covers 70% or more of the front surface, with an LCD, OLED, AMOLED, LED, or similar screen; the screen is often a touchscreen.

In 1999, the Japanese firm NTT DoCoMo released the first smartphones to achieve mass adoption within a country. Smartphones became widespread in the 21st century and most of those produced from 2012 onwards have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE, motion sensors, and mobile payment features. In the third quarter of 2012, one billion smartphones were in use worldwide. Global smartphone sales surpassed the sales figures for regular cell phones in early 2013. As of 2013, 65% of U.S. mobile consumers own smartphones. By January 2016, smartphones held over 79% of the U.S. mobile market.

Devices that combined telephony and computing were first conceptualized by Nikola Tesla in 1909 and Theodore Paraskevakos in 1971 and patented in 1974, and were offered for sale beginning in 1993. Paraskevakos was the first to introduce the concepts of intelligence, data processing and visual display screens into telephones. In 1971, while he was working with Boeing in Huntsville, Alabama, Paraskevakos demonstrated a transmitter and receiver that provided additional ways to communicate with remote equipment, however it did not yet have general purpose PDA applications in a wireless device typical of smartphones. They were installed at Peoples’ Telephone Company in Leesburg, Alabama and were demonstrated to several telephone companies. The original and historic working models are still in the possession of Paraskevakos.

“It is the prerogative of wizards to be grumpy. It is not, however, the prerogative of freelance consultants who are late on their rent, so instead of saying something smart, I told the woman on the phone, “Yes, ma’am. How can I help you today?”
— Jim Butcher (Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1))

In the late 1990s, many mobile phone users carried a separate dedicated PDA device, running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS, BlackBerry OS or Windows CE/Pocket PC. These operating systems would later evolve into mobile operating systems. In March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released the OmniGo 700LX, which was a modified 200LX PDA that supported a Nokia 2110-compatible phone and had integrated software built in ROM to support it. The device featured a 640×200 resolution CGA compatible 4-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to make and receive calls, text messages, emails and faxes. It was also 100% DOS 5.0 compatible, allowing it to run thousands of existing software titles including early versions of Windows. 
In August 1996, Nokia released the Nokia 9000 Communicator which combined a PDA based on the GEOS V3.0 operating system from Geoworks with a digital cellular phone based on the Nokia 2110. The two devices were fixed together via a hinge in what became known as a clamshell design. When opened, the display was on the inside top surface and with a physical QWERTY keyboard on the bottom. The personal organizer provided e-mail, calendar, address book, calculator and notebook with text-based web browsing, and the ability to send and receive faxes. When the personal organizer was closed, it could be used as a digital cellular phone. In June 1999, Qualcomm released a “CDMA Digital PCS Smartphone” with integrated Palm PDA and Internet connectivity, known as the “pdQ Smartphone”.

In early 2000, the Ericsson R380 was released by Ericsson Mobile Communications, and was the first device marketed as a “smartphone”. It combined the functions of a mobile phone and a PDA, supported limited web browsing with a resistive touchscreen utilizing a stylus. In early 2001, Palm, Inc. introduced the Kyocera 6035, which combined a PDA with a mobile phone and operated on Verizon. It also supported limited web browsing. In 2002, Handspring released the Treo 180, the first smartphone to combine Palm OS and a GSM phone, with telephony, SMS messaging and Internet access fully integrated into Palm OS.Smartphones before Android, iOS and BlackBerry, typically ran on Symbian, which was originally developed by Psion. It was the world’s most widely used smartphone operating system until the last quarter of 2010.

Evolution in Virtual Gaming

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Virtual reality (VR) is a computer technology that uses software-generated realistic images, sounds and other sensations to replicate a real environment or an imaginary setting, and simulates a user’s physical presence in this environment to enable the user to interact with this space. A person using virtual reality equipment is typically able to “look around” the artificial world, move about in it and interact with features or items that are depicted. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experiences, which can include sight, touch, hearing, and, less commonly, smell. Most 2016-era virtual realities are displayed either on a computer monitor, a projector screen, or with a virtual reality headset (also called head-mounted display or HMD). HMDs typically take the form of head-mounted goggles with a screen in front of the eyes. Some simulations include additional sensory information and provide sounds through speakers or headphones.

Some advanced haptic systems in the 2010s now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback in medical, video gaming and military applications. Some VR systems used in video games can transmit vibrations and other sensations to the user via the game controller. Virtual reality also refers to remote communication environments which provide a virtual presence of users with through telepresence and telexistence or the use of a virtual artifact (VA), either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal devices such as a wired glove or omnidirectional treadmills.

The immersive environment can be similar to the real world in order to create a lifelike experience—for example, in simulations for pilot or combat training, which depict realistic images and sounds of the world, where the normal laws of physics apply, or it can differ significantly from reality, such as in VR video games that take place in fantasy settings, where gamers can use fictional magic and telekinesis powers.

“No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want.

In 1938, Antonin Artaud described the illusory nature of characters and objects in the theatre as  in a collection of essays, Le Théâtre et son double. The English translation of this book, published in 1958 as The Theater and its Double, is the earliest published use of the term “virtual reality”. The term “artificial reality”, coined by Myron Krueger, has been in use since the 1970s. The term “virtual reality” was used in The Judas Mandala, a 1982 science fiction novel by Damien Broderick. The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1987 article titled “Virtual reality”, but the article is not about VR technology. “Virtual” has had the meaning “being something in essence or effect, though not actually or in fact” since the mid-1400s, ” 

Probably via sense of “capable of producing a certain effect. The term “virtual” was used in the computer sense of “not physically existing but made to appear by software” since 1959. The term “reality” has been used in English since the 1540s, to mean “quality of being real,” from “French réalité and directly Medieval Latin realitatem (nominative realitas), from Late Latin realis”.
Also notable among the earlier hypermedia and virtual reality systems was the Aspen Movie Map, which was created at MIT in 1978. The program was a crude virtual simulation of Aspen,

Colorado in which users could wander the streets in one of three modes: summer, winter, and polygons. The first two were based on photographs—the researchers actually photographed every possible movement through the city’s street grid in both seasons—and the third was a basic 3-D model of the city. Atari founded a research lab for virtual reality in 1982, but the lab was closed after two years due to Atari Shock (North American video game crash of 1983).

However, its hired employees, such as Tom Zimmerman, Scott Fisher, Jaron Lanier and Brenda Laurel, kept their research and development on VR-related technologies. By the 1980s the term “virtual reality” was popularized by Jaron Lanier, one of the modern pioneers of the field. Lanier had founded the company VPL Research in 1985. VPL Research has developed several VR devices like the Data Glove, the Eye Phone, and the Audio Sphere. VPL licensed the Data Glove technology to Mattel, which used it to make an accessory known as the Power Glove. While the Power Glove was hard to use and not popular, at US$75, it was early affordable VR device.

During this time, virtual reality was not well known, though it did receive media coverage in the late 1980s. Most of its popularity came from marginal cultures, like cyberpunks, who viewed the technology as a potential means for social change, and drug culture, who praised virtual reality not only as a new art form, but as an entirely new frontier. The concept of virtual reality was popularized in mass media by movies such as Brainstorm and The Lawnmower Man. The VR research boom of the 1990s was accompanied by the non-fiction book Virtual Reality by Howard Rheingold. The book served to demystify the subject, making it more accessible to researchers outside of the computer sphere and sci-fi enthusiasts.

Smart Watch on The GO

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A smartwatch is a computerized wristwatch with functionality that goes beyond timekeeping. While early models can perform basic tasks, such as calculations, translations, and game-playing, 2010s smartwatches are effectively wearable computers. Many run mobile apps, using a mobile operating system. Some smartwatches function as portable media players, with FM radio and playback of digital audio and video files via a Bluetooth or USB headset. Some models, also called ‘watch phones’, feature full mobile phone capability, and can make or answer phone callsor text messages.

While internal hardware varies, most have an electronic visual display, either backlit LCD or OLED. Some use transflective or electronic paper, to consume less power. Most have a rechargeable battery and many have a touchscreen. Peripheral devices may include digital cameras, thermometers, accelerometers, altimeters, barometers, compasses, GPS receivers, tiny speakers, and SD card (that are recognized as a storage device by a computer).

Software may include digital maps, schedulers and personal organizers, calculators, and various kinds of watch faces. The watch may communicate with external devices such as sensors, wireless headsets, or a heads-up display. Like other computers, a smartwatch may collect information from internal or external sensors and it may control, or retrieve data from, other instruments or computers. It may support wireless technologies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS. For many purposes, a “wristwatch computer” serves as a front end for a remote system such as a smartphone, communicating with the smartphone using various wireless technologies. Smartwatches are advancing, especially their design, battery capacity, and health related applications.

the number one reason knitters knit is because they are so smart that they need knitting to make boring things interesting. Knitters are so compellingly clever that they simply can’t tolerate boredom. It takes more to engage and entertain this kind of human, and they need an outlet or they get into trouble.

Many smartwatch models manufactured in the 2010s are completely functional as standalone products. Some serve as sport watches, the GPS tracking unit being used to record historical data. For example, after a workout, data can be uploaded onto a computer or online to create a log of activities for analysis or sharing. Some watches can serve as full GPS watches, displaying maps and current coordinates, and recording tracks. Users can “mark” their current location and then edit the entry’s name and coordinates, which enables navigation to those new coordinates. As companies add competitive products into the market, media space is becoming a desired commodity on smart watches.

With Apple, Sony, Samsung, and Motorola introducing their smart watch models, 15% of tech consumers use wearable technologies. This is a dense market of tech consumers who possess buying power, which has attracted many advertisers. It is expected for mobile advertising on wearable devices to increase heavily by 2017 as advanced hypertargeting modules are introduced to the devices. In order for an advertisement to be effective on a smart watch, companies have stated that the ad must be able to create experiences native to the smart watch itself.

“Sport watch” functionality often includes activity tracker features as seen in GPS watches made for training, diving, and outdoor sports. Functions may include training programs (such as intervals), lap times, speed display, GPS tracking unit, Route tracking, dive computer, heart rate monitor compatibility, Cadence sensor compatibility, and compatibility with sport transitions (as in triathlons). Other watches can cooperate with an app in a smartphone to carry out their functions.

They may be little more than timepieces unless they are paired, usually by Bluetooth, with a mobile phone. Some of these only work with a phone that runs the same mobile operating system; others use a unique watch OS, or otherwise are able to work with most smartphones. Paired, the watch may function as a remote to the phone. This allows the watch to display data such as calls, SMS messages, emails, and calendar invites, and any data that may be made available by relevant phone apps. Some fitness tracker watches give users reports on the number of kilometers they walked, hours of sleep, and so on.

Tips for travelling with an infant

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Travel is the movement of people between relatively distant geographical locations, and can involve travel by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, airplane, or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel can also include relatively short stays between successive movements. An infant is the very young offspring of a human or other animal. When applied to humans, the term is usually considered synonymous with baby or bairn, but the latter is commonly applied to the young of any animal. When a human child learns to walk, the term toddler may be used instead.

The term infant is typically applied to young children between the ages of 1 month and 12 months; however, definitions may vary between birth and 1 year of age, or even between birth and 2 years of age. A newborn is an infant who is only hours, days, or up to a few weeks old. In medical contexts, newborn or neonate refers to an infant in the first 28 days after birth; the term applies to premature infants, postmature infants, and full term infants. Before birth, the term fetus is used. In the UK, infant is a term that can be applied to school children aged between four and seven. As a legal terminology, “infancy” continues from birth until age 18.

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

-Saint Augustine

Authorities emphasize the importance of taking precautions to ensure travel safety. When traveling abroad, the odds favor a safe and incident-free trip, however, travelers can be subject to difficulties, crime and violence.

Some safety considerations include being aware of one’s surroundings,  avoiding being the target of a crime,  leaving copies of one’s passport and itinerary information with trusted people, obtaining medical insurance valid in the country being visited and registering with one’s national embassy when arriving in a foreign country. Many countries do not recognize drivers’ licenses from other countries; however most countries accept international driving permits. Automobile insurance policies issued in one’s own country are often invalid in foreign countries, and it is often a requirement to obtain temporary auto insurance valid in the country being visited. It is also advisable to become oriented with the driving rules and regulations of destination countries. Wearing a seat belt is highly advisable for safety reasons; many countries have penalties for violating seat belt laws.

The term infant is typically applied to young children between the ages of 1 month and 12 months; however, definitions may vary between birth and 1 year of age, or even between birth and 2 years of age. A newborn is an infant who is only hours, days, or up to a few weeks old. In medical contexts, newborn or neonate refers to an infant in the first 28 days after birth; the term applies to premature infants, postmature infants, and full term infants. Before birth, the term fetus is used. In the UK, infant is a term that can be applied to school children aged between four and seven. As a legal terminology, “infancy” continues from birth until age 18.

What is this new sport that is winning the world

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Sport or sports are all forms of usually competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. Usually the contest or game is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a tie game; others provide tie-breaking methods, to ensure one winner and one loser.

A number of such two-sided contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, each against all with one winner.

Sports are usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.

 

Horse racing is disappearing in South Africa

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Sport or sports are all forms of usually competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. Usually the contest or game is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a tie game; others provide tie-breaking methods, to ensure one winner and one loser.

A number of such two-sided contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, each against all with one winner.

Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sports betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.

According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013. The world’s most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is its most popular spectator sport.

Boxing Ring is rigged says Tagerine

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Sport or sports are all forms of usually competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. Usually the contest or game is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a tie game; others provide tie-breaking methods, to ensure one winner and one loser.

A number of such two-sided contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, each against all with one winner.

Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sports betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.

According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013. The world’s most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is its most popular spectator sport.

Will EmDrive thruster change in space travel

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Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.

Debates concerning the nature, essence and the mode of existence of space date back to antiquity; namely, to treatises like the Timaeus of Plato, or Socrates in his reflections on what the Greeks called khôra , or in the Physics of Aristotle (Book IV, Delta) in the definition of topos , or in the later “geometrical conception of place” as “space qua extension” in the Discourse on Place  of the 11th-century Arab polymath Alhazen. Many of these classical philosophical questions were discussed in the Renaissance and then reformulated in the 17 th century, particularly during the early development of classical mechanics. In Isaac Newton’s view, space was absolute-in the sense that it existed permanently and independently of whether there was any matter in the space. Other natural philosophers, notably Gottfried Leibniz, thought instead that space was in fact a collection of relations between objects, given by their distance and direction from one another. In the 18th century, the philosopher and theologian George Berkeleyattempted to refute the “visibility of spatial depth” in his Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision. Later, the metaphysician Immanuel Kantsaid that the concepts of space and time are not empirical ones derived from experiences of the outside world—they are elements of an already given systematic framework that humans possess and use to structure all experiences. Kant referred to the experience of “space” in his Critique of Pure Reason as being a subjective “pure a priori form of intuition”.

In the 19th and 20th centuries mathematicians began to examine geometries that are non-Euclidean, in which space is conceived as curved, rather than flat. According to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, space around gravitational fields deviates from Euclidean space. Experimental tests of general relativity have confirmed that non-Euclidean geometries provide a better model for the shape of space.