vortex theory

名词 n.

英文释义

名词 n.
  1. An obsolete scientific theory, chiefly developed by René Descartes, which attempted to explain celestial mechanics and the phenomena now described as gravitation by positing a system of fluid vortices governed by centrifugal forces and extending outwards from the sun. historical,uncountable
    — Roger Cotes, in a preface to the first English edition of the Principia in 1729, argued that vortex-theory, with its notion of the plenum and its ambition to explain natural effects on exclusively physical grounds, made no allowance for, and could not be fitted into, a teleological scheme of any kind.
  2. The vortex theory of the atom: a theory by Lord Kelvin, to explain why there are relatively few types of atom, but a huge number of each type. uncountable
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see vortex, theory. uncountable
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