| 释义 |
atomicity Chem.|ætəˈmɪsɪtɪ|
[f. atomic + -ity.]
1. a. The combining capacity of an element (or radical), i.e. the number of atoms of hydrogen, or other monovalent element, with which one of its atoms normally combines.
Thus the atomicity of chlorine is 1 (or chlorine is a monad) because it forms with hydrogen H Cl; and that of carbon is 4 (or carbon is a tetrad) because it forms with hydrogen C H4. Atomicity has also been called equivalence, quantivalence, adicity, and (now usually) valency.
1865Reader 1 Apr. 372 The word atomicity has been invented for the purpose of describing those properties of atoms which were described by the word ‘equivalence.’ 1873Cooke Chem. 284 The number of these replaceable atoms measures what is called the atomicity of the compound.
b. The number of atoms in the molecule of an element (Webster 1900).
2. In modern philosophy: capacity for being reduced to or analysed into atomic propositions or other elements; cf. atomic A. 2 a, atomism 1 b.
1929A. N. Whitehead Process & Reality iii. i. 333 A prehension, considered genetically, can never free itself from the incurable atomicity of the actual entity to which it belongs. 1940B. Russell Inq. Meaning & Truth xii. 169 Can we construct an adequate language in which the principle of atomicity holds? 1959― My Philos. Devel. x. 118 The principle of atomicity is stated by Wittgenstein in the following terms: ‘Every statement about complexes can be analysed into a statement about their constituent parts, and into those propositions which completely describe the complexes’ (Tractatus, 2.0201). |