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Full Idea
The number of bodies and the magnitude of the void are unlimited. If void were unlimited, and bodies limited, bodies move in scattered fashion with no support of checking collisions; in limited void, unlimited bodies would not have a place to be in.
Gist of Idea
Bodies are unlimited as well as void, since the two necessarily go together
Source
Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 42)
Book Ref
Epicurus: 'The Epicurus Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B. /Gerson,L. [Hackett 1994], p.7
A Reaction
Seems good. The point is that without collisions, bodies would not stop relative to one another, and combine to form the objects we perceive. Of course if the started off (anathema!) stuck together, they may not have dispersed yet.
Related Idea
Idea 14032 Totality has no edge; an edge implies a contrast beyond the edge, and there can't be one [Epicurus]
| 8659 | The gods alone live forever with Shamash. The days of humans are numbered. [Anon (Gilg)] |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 5093 | Continuity depends on infinity, because the continuous is infinitely divisible [Aristotle] |
| 5095 | The heavens seem to be infinite, because we cannot imagine their end [Aristotle] |
| 8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
| 14032 | Totality has no edge; an edge implies a contrast beyond the edge, and there can't be one [Epicurus] |
| 14033 | Bodies are unlimited as well as void, since the two necessarily go together [Epicurus] |
| 22743 | Unlike Epicurus, Stoics distinguish the Whole from the All, with the latter including the void [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 5704 | There can be no centre in infinity [Lucretius] |
| 5703 | The universe must be limitless, since there could be nothing outside to limit it [Lucretius] |
| 4821 | An infinite line can be marked in feet or inches, so one infinity is twelve times the other [Spinoza] |
| 18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
| 9635 | Given atomism at one end, and a finite universe at the other, there are no physical infinities [Brown,JR] |
| 20469 | There are probably no infinities, and 'infinite' names what we do not yet know [Rovelli] |