have rules, and therefore each "phonetic atom" - in this case, all the phonetic sounds in the universe - "must be static and discretely different from each other," which means there can be no inconsistency in how each sound is produced. They argue that this is unrealistic because speakers of the same language often speak differently in that the intonations of sounds and stresses on syllables depend on each person's style of speaking, not necessarily their accent. Port and Leary claim that phonetics is filled with many asymmetries. How we understand the phonetic space to look like comes from the idea that the dimensions of the space include Voicing, Height, and Nasal, and the variations of these dimensions help produce the many sounds of language. Port and Leary argue that not all phonetic properties can be combined, however, such as vowel height and backness, and therefore, the rules are asymmetric in that it is unknown what properties can exist together in one sound. In regards to the concept of the phonetic space, Port and Leary essentially argue that, contrary to the research of Chomsky and Halle, there are too many inconsistencies and difficulties concerned with the existence of a phonetic space and that while their perspective is not widely accepted by other linguists, they contribute valid points to the idea that the infinite number of sounds cannot co-exist perfectly with a set of rules in one space. History Phonetic space is rarely touched upon in linguistics, and therefore little research has been done on the topic, however, there are a few things of note regarding the subject: The idea of phonetic space could not have developed until we had a working definition of phonetics and had a way to place sound in space. While Grassmann's development of linear algebra set us on the conceptual path to placing values in space, it was C. G. Kratzenstein who first published detailed methods to synthesize speech in the 1700s. "Although when his principal phonetic work, was published in 1781 and 1782 there was no clear understanding of acoustic resonance, his accomplishment – via trial and error – was remarkable and contributed to accumulating "existence proofs" that speech could be understood in physical and physiological terms." While first mentioned in the 1700s, the idea was largely ignored until the 1940s when the term was more officially coined by Martin Joos, an American linguist and