Editing Cosmos (section)

===European view===
[[File:The Nights Long Moments (152181573).jpeg|thumb|Stars rotating in the night sky]]
Early Europeans viewed the cosmos as a divinely created, spatially finite, bifurcated cosmos, divided into sublunary and superlunary realms. Objects above the lunar disc were believed to be stable, with heavenly bodies believed to be made out of a refined substance called "[[Quintessence (physics)|quintessence]]". This was understood to be a crystalline, completely transparent substance that held all of the superlunary spheres in perfect order. After their creation by God, these spheres did not change except for their rotation above the Earth.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The dialogue of civilizations in the birth of modern science|last=Bala|first= Arun|date=2010|publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)|others=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies|isbn=978-9812309082|location=Singapore|pages=134–152|oclc=647647268}}</ref> Objects below the lunar sphere were subject to constant combination, separation, and recombination. This was because they consisted of the chaotic elements of earth, air, fire, and water.<ref name=":0" />

The idea of celestial spheres was developed in the cosmological models of [[Plato]], [[Eudoxus of Cnidus|Eudoxus]], [[Aristotle]], [[Ptolemy]], [[Nicolaus Copernicus|Copernicus]], and others.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Planets, stars and orbs : the medieval cosmos, 1200–1687|last=Grant|first=Edward|date=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521138680|pages=40|oclc=818047493}}</ref> They believed in a stable cosmos created by God, where distinct realms were subject to different kinds of order. Some Europeans maintained the Aristotelian view that infinity could only be seen as an attribute of God, with the cosmos being finite. Furthermore, following the Aristotelian view that "nature abhors a vacuum", some Europeans believed that the space between the spheres were filled with air.<ref name=":0" /> This theory persisted until the [[Scientific Revolution]], when the discovery that the Sun was in the center of the planetary system rocked cosmological understanding to its core.  Other theories such as Atomism posited a void of atoms as the fundamental elements of physics, while Stoicism postulated a void allowing for the cosmos to expand and contract in volume through its cycles.<ref name="sambursky110">{{Citation|last=Sambursky|first=Samuel|year=1959|title=Physics of the Stoics|publisher=Routledge}}{{ISBN?}}</ref><ref name="SEP">Berryman, Sylvia, "Ancient Atomism", ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'' (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), [http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/atomism-ancient/ online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604024544/http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/atomism-ancient/ |date=2016-06-04 }}</ref>