Disputatio:Physica

E Vicipaedia

Est hic difficultas quaedam non parva: "physica" Latine (et Graece) NON significat "physics," sed potius "natural science" (et "scientia" numquam "science" sonat, sed potius "knowledge"). Igitur ut "physics," "la physique" significemus, oportunum fuerit vocabulo "physica" epithetum vel adiectivum aptum addere. Familiaris quidam meus, qui "physics" profitetur, vocem "physica fundamentalis" mihi roganti proposuit, quasi "physics" rerum omnium naturalium fundamenta primaria investiget. Omnino oportet, mea sententia, vocabula Latina adhibeamus quae cum ratione perennis Latinitatis utcumque quadrent -- ne sermo quem hic usurpemus in quendam quasi lusum evadat, quo vocabulis vernaculis desinentias Latinas appingamus. [There's a serious naming problem here: "physica" in Latin (and Greek) does NOT means "physics," but "natural science" (and "scientia" is knowledge, not "science"). So to express the concept "physics," we probably should add an epithet or adjective to "physica." A friend who teaches physics suggested "physica fundamentalis," on grounds that physics deals with the underlying or basic phenomena underlying the natural universe. I thinks it's really essential in Vicipaedia to use words that are at least more or less consistent with the way people have been writing Latin for the previous 2200 years -- otherwise the danger is that what we do here will end up being not much more than a game where we stick Latin endings onto what are really English, French, etc. words.] Severus Censor, 26 Mar. 2006.