| 释义 |
impossibility|ɪmpɒsɪˈbɪlɪtɪ|
[a. F. impossibilité (14th c.) or ad. L. impossibilitāt-em, f. impossibilis impossible: see -ity.]
1. a. The quality of being impossible.
1387–8T. Usk Test. Love iii. iii. (Skeat) l. 14 Shewe me the absence of that impossibilite. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 215 No lesse impossibilite it is, but rather more. 1548Hall Chron., Hen. VIII 110 To declare the impossibilite of this demaunde. 1647Clarendon Hist. Reb. i. §55 The impossibility that his Intelligence could be true. 1707Curios. in Husb. & Gard. 187 The Impossibility they lie under of restoring them to their first State. 1754Edwards Freed. Will i. iii. 19 Impossibility is the same as negative Necessity, or a Necessity that a Thing should not be. 1876Mozley Univ. Serm. xi. (1877) 221 Where is the impossibility of a glorious and endless existence?
b. With an and pl.: An instance of this; an impossible thing; that which cannot be.
c1500Three Kings' Sons 112, I am not bounde to noon ympossibilite. 1570Billingsley Euclid i. i. 9 A demonstration leadyng to an impossibilitie is that argument whose conclusion is impossible. 1691–8Norris Pract. Disc. (1711) III. 73 The Impossibilities are of two sorts, Impossible Truths, and Impossible Goods. 1772Priestley Inst. Relig. (1782) I. 28 Even divine power cannot produce impossibilities. 1828Carlyle Misc., Burns (1872) II. 14 Is not every genius an impossibility till he appear?
†2. Impotence, inability. (So med.L. impossibilitās.) Obs.
c1450tr. De Imitatione iii. vi. 71 Loue..pleyniþ neuere of impossibilite, for it demeþ itself miȝty to all þinges. 1553Latimer Serm. Lord's Pr. iv. (1562) 22 b, He woulde haue vs to know our owne impossibilitye and vnablenesse to doe any thyng. Ibid. vii. 45 Whan..we say, Leade vs not into temptation, we learn to know our own impossibilitie and infirmitie. 1654–66Ld. Orrery Parthen. 534 News of his impossibility of doing it. 1796Plain Sense II. 167 The utter impossibility of her father to afford any effectual assistance.
3. Math. The quality of being ‘impossible’ or imaginary. rare.
1673Wallis in Rigaud Corr. Sci. Men (1841) II. 557 Not⁓withstanding the impossibility of..the square root of a negative quantity.
4. Comb. impossibility theorem (see quots.). (Earlier known as the possibility theorem: see possibility 4.)
[1950K. J. Arrow in Jrnl. Pol. Econ. LVIII. 342 The Possibility Theorem shows that, if no prior assumptions are made about the nature of individual orderings, there is no method of voting which will remove the paradox of voting discussed in Part I, neither plurality voting nor any scheme of proportional representation, no matter how complicated.] 1957Luce & Raiffa Games & Decisions xiv. 333 (heading) Conditions on the social welfare function and Arrow's impossibility theorem. 1960Q. Jrnl. Econ. LXXIV. 509 (heading) Proof of the Arrow impossibility theorem. 1967K. J. Arrow in Laslett & Runciman Philos., Politics & Society 3rd Ser. 228 The following general theorem may be stated: There can be no constitution simultaneously satisfying the conditions of Collective Rationality, the Pareto Principle, the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives, and Non-Dictatorship. The proof falls into two parts. It is first shown that if an individual is decisive for some pair of alternatives, then he is a dictator, contrary to the condition of Non-Dictatorship. Hence, no individual is decisive for any pair of alternatives, and the Impossibility Theorem itself then follows easily with the aid of the Pareto Principle. 1969D. Black in Jrnl. Law & Econ. XII. ii. 227 The Impossibility Theorem shows that in the general case and apart from restrictions on the members' preferences, no committee procedure will be able to satisfy certain conditions which, Arrow suggests, a procedure might reasonably be required to meet, and that whichever committee procedure we may choose will, for certain sets of schedules, infringe one or more of the apparently reasonable conditions he specifies. 1971W. Lee Decision Theory & Human Behavior iv. 103 Unhappily..reasonable conditions for deriving a social preference ranking from individual rankings are inconsistent with one another, i.e., in general there may be no social ranking conforming to the desired conditions, a conclusion known as Arrow's impossibility theorem. |