Chinese edit

to pull; to attract motion; movement
trad. (攝動)
simp. (摄动)

Etymology edit

Coined by Alexander Wylie and Li Shanlan in 1859 as a calque of English perturbation in their translation of John Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy:

行星攝動 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
行星摄动 [Classical Chinese, simp.]
From: John Herschel (侯失勒約翰), 1849. Outlines of Astronomy, Chapter 5. Translated into the Chinese by Alexander Wylie (偉烈亞力) and Li Shanlan (李善蘭) as《談天》in 1859.[1][2]
Qián shù juàn lǚ yán, yuè yǔ xíngxīng yú Kèbái'ěr suǒdìng sānlì wài, shàngyǒu xiǎochā, míngyuē shèdòng. [Pinyin]
In the progress of this work, we have more than once called the reader's attention to the existence of inequalities in the lunar and planetary motions not included in the expression of Kepler's laws, but in some sort supplementary to them, and of an order so far subordinate to those leading features of the celestial movements. These inequalities are known, in physical astronomy, by the name of perturbations.

Pronunciation edit


Noun edit

攝動

  1. (astronomy, physics, of orbital motion under gravitation) perturbation

References edit

  1. ^ John F.W. Herschel (1849) Outlines of Astronomy[1], 10 edition, London: Longmans, Greens, and Co., published 1893, page 410
  2. ^ 侯失勒 (1859) 偉烈亞力, 李善蘭, transl., 談天 [tántiān] (萬有文庫) (in Chinese), volume 3, 上海: 商務印書館, published 1929