Clinamen

Clinamen is the word Lucretius gave to the unpredictable swerve of atoms. He means that these atoms don't just fall down, but because of the swerve collisions happen.Titus Lucretius Carus; William Augustus Merrill, Lucretius De Rerum Natura (New York; Cincinnati: American Book Co., 1907), p. 414 Lucretius wrote that without this slight swerve (atoms) would "fall like raindrops and never touch and the world would have never been made". Lucretius was the first to write about Chaos theory.Gombrowicz's Grimaces: Modernism, Gender, Nationality, ed. Ewa Płonowska Ziarek (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), p. 90  

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Category:Physics