The culmination of the 19th century mathematical pre-occupation with space-time was a 1898 science fiction novel 'The Time Machine' -

"‘Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,’ continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. ‘Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space"

https://www.bartleby.com/1000/1.html

In the early 20th century they re-worked Newton's absolute/relative definitions into a formal version of the science fiction novel -

https://www.bartleby.com/173/31.html


Of course people get some sort of perverse pleasure being caught up inside this celestial sphere RA/Dec bubble but this represents the concerns of theorists who were never astronomers anyway whether the world knows it or not.

I wouldn't care to burst the celestial bubble as it really isn't my business even though I can do it easily. It doesn't matter if it survives, the game is up nonetheless.