“Natura non facit saltus”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Overview

The principle expresses the idea that natural things and properties change gradually, rather than suddenly. In a mathematical context, this allows one to assume that the solutions of the governing equations are continuous, and also does not preclude their being differentiable (differentiability implies continuity). Modern day quantum mechanics is sometimes seen as violating the principle, with its idea of a quantum leap.^[5] Erwin Schrödinger in his objections to quantum jumps supported the principle, and initially developed his wave mechanics in order to remove these jumps.

In the biological context, the principle was used by Charles Darwin and others to defend the evolutionary postulate that all species develop from earlier species through gradual and minute changes rather than through the sudden emergence of new forms. Modern evolutionary biology has terminology suggesting both continuous change, such as genetic drift, and discontinuous variation, such as mutation. However, as the basic structure of DNA is discrete, nature is now widely understood to make jumps at the biological level, if only on a very small scale.

Variant forms

See also

References

1. ^Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Continuity and Infinitesimals".
2. ^¹Alexander Baumgarten, Metaphysics: A Critical Translation with Kant's Elucidations, Translated and Edited by Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Bloomsbury, 2013, "Preface of the Third Edition (1750)", [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Jw-Q3hfXTqoC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=%22must+also+have+in+mind+Leibniz%27s+%22natura+non+facit+saltus%22+%5Bnature+does+not%22&source=bl&ots=fjnzUwdnU0&sig=WjRSt33StSGzcAlsGohtaZ-tJ00&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTytXIgu7MAhViAsAKHU_dD7wQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=%22must%20also%20have%20in%20mind%20Leibniz's%20%22natura%20non%20facit%20saltus%22%20%5Bnature%20does%20not%22&f=false p. 79 n. d]: "[Baumgarten] must also have in mind Leibniz's "natura non facit saltus [nature does not make leaps]" (NE IV, 16)."
3. ^Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 1859, p. 194
4. ^Carolus Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, 1st ed., 1751, Chapter III, § 77, p. 27.
5. ^Marxists.org and Arizona.edu
6. ^¹Texlog.de
7. ^{{cite book |title=Ökonomische Theorie und christlicher Glaube |first1=Andrew |last1=Britton |first2=Peter H. |last2=Sedgwick |first3=Burghard |last3=Bock |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |year=2008 |isbn=978-3-8258-0162-5 |page=289 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=goW6JsEUz4EC}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=goW6JsEUz4EC&pg=PA289 Extract of page 289].