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“When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backwards, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?” — Thomasina in Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia.
We are all individually traveling across time and space on this planet and simultaneously moving together on this blue marble across the galaxy. Multidimensional perspectives of space can be contemplated and marveled at from the glorious microscopic spaces to the breathtaking macroscopic spaces and all the spaces in between.
The space between is indicative of the strength of the bond or relationship. The space between chemical bonds determines its strength. The shorter the bond length, the stronger it is and the more energy is needed to break it. The space between people can show how strong their bond is with very little space between them suggesting a tight bond and a lot of space suggesting a lot of distance. The tighter the bond, the harder it is to break it. Consciously or unconsciously, body movements and the distance between bodies signal to others the closeness or distance that is being felt.
Our spatial awareness comes into play as we seek to go near or far from others. The Harvard…
