The Gutenberg galaxy was theoretically dissolved in 1905 with 
the discovery of curved space, but in practice it had been 
invaded by the telegraph two generations before that.

*     Whittaker notes (p. 98) that the space of Newton and 
Gassendi was so far as geometry was concerned, the space of 
Euclid: “it was infinite, homogeneous, and completely 
featureless, one point being just like another . . .” Much earlier 
our concern had been to explain why this fiction of 
homogeneity and uniform continuity had derived from phonetic 
writing, especially in print form. Whittaker says that from a 
physics point of view the Newtonian space was “mere 
emptiness into which things could be put.” But even for 
Newton, the gravitational field seemed incompatible with this 
neutral space. “As a matter of fact, the successors of Newton 
felt this difficulty; and, having started with a space that was in