Environment and Nature
Webpages concerning "Environment and Nature"
|
The contents has been generating using technology developed by scientec.
Wikipedia-Article "Environment"
An environment is a complex of external factors. It acts on a system and determines its course and form of existence. An environment may be thought of as a superset, of which the given system is a subset. An environment may have one or more parameters, physical or otherwise. The environment of a given system must interact with that system.
Generally, the environment or milieu of some object or action consists of the substances, circumstances, objects, or conditions by which it is surrounded or in which it occurs. (Although the two terms are usually synonyms, some sciences prefer the less common milieu to avoid confusion with the more wider-known meanings of environment in ecology, politics, and sociology.)
Either word may be used with specialized meaning in various contexts:
Contents |
Life science
- In biology, environment may be defined as the complex of climatic, biotic, social and edaphic factors that acts upon an organism and determines its form and survival. It, therefore, includes everything that may directly affect the metabolism or behavior of a living organism or species, including light, air, water, soil, and other living beings. See natural environment.
- In architecture, ergonomy, and work safety, it is the ensemble of elements of a room or building that affect the well-being and efficiency of its occupants—including dimensions and arrangement of living spaces and furniture, light, ventilation, temperature, noise, etc. It may also refer to the collection of built structures. See built environment.
- See geography for a subject that is a study of the environment. (Terms like SOSE (Studies of Society & the Environment) not only refer to environmental studies, but also social sciences.)
- In psychology, environmentalism is the theory that environment (in the general and social sense) plays a greater role than heredity in determining an individual's development. More significantly, the environment is an important factor in many psychological theories.
Physical science
- In thermodynamics, it refers to any objects that are not part of the system under study, and may receive or provide heat to it; see surroundings (thermodynamics).
- In chemistry and biochemistry, it is the chemical nature of a solution in which a reaction takes place, chiefly its pH (i.e. whether it is acidic or alkaline).
- In metallurgy and ceramics, it often refers to the oxidizing or reductive character of the gases or flames prevailing during some high-temperature process.
Liberal arts and social science
- In non-technical contexts, such as politics, it often refers to the natural environment, that part of the natural world that is deemed valuable or important by human beings, for any reason. See natural environment.
- In literature, history, and sociology, it is the culture that an individual lives or was educated in, and the people and institutions with whom he interacts. See social environment.
- In fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy it can refer to any fictional universe or setting in which different stories are set. Thus the Star Wars sagas are all in one milieu while the various Star Trek series, movies, and books are in different milieus. This meaning is also relevant to fantasy roleplaying games. See fictional universe, constructed world and fantasy world.
- In any kind of organization or enterprise, it may also refer to the social and psychological conditions that are felt by its members. See work environment.
- In any kind of meeting or congress, it may signify the prevailing mood or preferences of the participants.
Computer science and informatics
- In computer science, it generally means data, processes or devices which, although not explicitly named as parameters of a computation, may nevertheless affect its outcome.
- In functional programming, lambda calculus, and programming languages, it usually means identifiers that are defined outside a given function but can be used in it. In other words, everything with global or otherwise non-local scope to that function.
- In certain operating systems like Unix, DOS, and Microsoft Windows, the environment is a set of environment variables in the form of var=value used by applications and libraries to affect default preferences.
- More generally, it may also mean the hardware and operating system on which a program is executed; see system platform.
Wikipedia-Article "Nature"
- For alternative meanings, see Nature (disambiguation).
Nature (also called the material world, the material universe, the natural world, and the natural universe) is all matter and energy, especially in its essential form. Nature is the subject of scientific study, and the history of the concept is linked to the history of science. The English word derives from a Latin term, natura, which was in turn a translation of a Greek term, physis (φύσις). Natura is related to the Latin words relating to "birth", while physis relates to Greek words relating to "growth". In scale, "nature" includes everything from the universal to the subatomic. This includes all things animal, plant, and mineral; all natural resources and events (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes). It also includes the behaviour of living animals, and processes associated with inanimate objects - the "way" that things change.
Contents |
Scientific divisions of Nature
Nature outside Earth and its atmosphere
Events and phenomena outside Earth and its atmosphere are in the natural science of astronomy.
Life
Life, the characteristics and behaviors of organisms, how species and individuals come into existence, and the interactions they have with each other and with their environment are all in the natural science of biology. The branch of biology that focuses on the relationships of organisms and their environment is the science of ecology.
Chemicals
The structure, properties, composition, and reactions of chemical elements and compounds are part of the natural science of chemistry.
Matter and force
The behaviour and interactions of matter and force are a part of the natural science of physics.
Earth
Everything relating to the planet Earth is a part of earth science.
Philosophy of Nature
Metaphysics
In philosophy, the view that the material world of atoms, animals, gravity, stars, wind, microbes, etc., actually exist independently of our observations of them is termed realism; the opposing view is called idealism.
The natural and the artificial
A distinction is often drawn between the "natural" and the "artificial" (="man-made"). Can such a distinction be justified? One approach is to exclude mind from the realm of the natural; another is to exclude not only mind, but also humans and their influence. In either case, the boundary between the natural and the artificial is a difficult one to draw (see mind-body problem). Some people believe that the problem is best avoided by saying that everything is natural, but that does little to clarify the concept of the "artificial". In any event, ambiguities about the distinction between the natural and the artificial animate much of art, literature and philosophy.
Another approach is to distinguish natural processes and artificial (man-made) processes. In this viewpoint, a process is deemed to occur either at the behest of man, or not. For example, flipping a light switch might illuminate a room, or perhaps a sunrise might illuminate that room. In this viewpoint, the sunrise would be termed a natural process; the decision of a human being to flip the light switch would be termed an artificial illumination, in contrast. In this viewpoint, artifice (art or literature) is clearly the result of willful human action; furthermore, the act of stating a philosophical position could also be a willful action (and hence at the behest of man), whether or not the content of the philosophy were to be about science.
The distinction between what is natural and artificial was initially important, as far as we know, to the ancient Greeks. Perhaps their main interest was in distinguishing good aims from ones that have been distorted.
Beauty in Nature
The writer Steven Fry has commented that if we look around us, anything ugly that we see will have been created by human hands; this exemplifies a widely held view that nature is intrinsically beautiful. That the beauty of nature has been celebrated by so large a proportion of our art is further proof of the strength of this association between nature and beauty. Many scientists also share the conviction that nature is beautiful; the French mathematician, Jules Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) said:
If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living."
Related concepts
The term natural science is used in a variety of ways, primarily:
- to denote the study of natural processes as opposed to human activities, in contrast to the social sciences; and
- to denote those sciences which employ the scientific method, in contrast, for example, to mathematics or computer science.
The term natural philosophy formerly named the scientific discipline now known as physics.
Natural theology straddles the disciplines of theology and philosophy of religion.
In education and related areas, the contrast "natural/artificial" can appear as " nature/nurture".
See also: praeternatural, unnatural and supernatural.
See also
- Biophilia
- Mother Nature
- Naturefriends
- Natural units (Planck units)
- Materialism
- Next nature
- Naturalism (Philosophy): the philosophical stance based on Materialism and Pragmatism that rejects the validity of explanations making use of entities inaccessible to natural science (compare with supernatural).
External links
- The Nature Conservancy - a charitable organization devoted to preserving natural diversity worldwide
- English Nature UK government organization devoted to preserving natural diversity in the UK
- Nature Detectives An online research and education project for under 18s in the UK
- A Guide to Nature and Wildlife Conservation