Why modern physics treats space as more than emptiness

The extract begins from the experimental conclusion that distances depend on the physical properties of the space in which objects exist. Calling space a kind of medium helps explain bending and stretching, but its curvature is intrinsic rather than a sheet bending inside a larger room. Physics does not currently require that this space sit inside a separate superspace, nor does it provide clear laws for a region with no space at all. The authors present this as a relatively recent conceptual shift that remains difficult because ordinary human intuition evolved for motion at familiar scales. The illustrated treatment offers an accessible way into questions that physics can formulate more easily than it can yet answer.