Genz poses these questions and dozens more. The reader is taken through a near complete history of what people have thought about the nature of space and the nature of 'nothingness'. This includes pre-Platoian times, Plato, Aristotle, the Scholastic philosophers, Galileo , Newton , Leibniz , Descartes , and the modern scientists who have left us with experimental evidence that we are really dealing with a quantum mechanical vacuum filled with fluctuations. Although the history of these ideas is important and frequently interesting Genz can go beyond what many people are expecting or wanting to read. Chapter 2, for instance, rambles for much of its 64 pages.
All space contains fluctuating fields and particles.
Essentially, as space is created it is given some properties of 'non-emptiness'. Similar to the vacuum fluctuations the book describes, Genz's prose and topic choice osculate between engrossing and dull, scientific and philosophical. Part of this 'dullness' may be due to the reader's background. I found the topics I was completely unfamiliar with to be more 'dull'. Usually, these are mentioned in passing as if they were thrown in before publication rather than adequately incorporated into the flow of the narrative.