崔锡鼎对空间无限的论证

Choe Sǒk-chǒng Corroboration for the Spacial Infinity

在中国历史上,宇宙空间是有限还是无限是一个长期争论的话题。18世纪初时,朝鲜学者崔锡鼎对此做出了更有价值的探索。崔锡鼎受亚里士多德有限空间观激发,以气是构成宇宙万物的材料且无限存在为公理,将描述气物理属性的空间和时间对等,并以气在时间上无限久远类推出气在空间上无限扩展,从而论证出宇宙空间无限,还引证出多重世界的存在。同时这一过程也显示了亚里士多德宇宙论在不同文明中的某些境遇。

It has been a long debated topic that whether cosmic space is finite or infinite for a long time in Chinese history,it is the Korean scholar Choe Sǒkchǒng(崔锡鼎,1646-1715)who has made a more valuable exploration of this topic in the early 18th century.Inspired by Aristotle’s view of finite space,Choe Sǒk-chǒng took Qi(气)as the material that composes everything in the universe and sees the infinite existence as the axiom,by describing the equity between the space and time of Qi’s physical properties,deriving that Qi expands infinitely in space based on the infinite long in time,thus demonstrating the infinite space of the universe and citing the existence of multiple worlds.At the same time this process also reveals some of the situations in different civilizations of Aristotelian cosmology.