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Nature
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Much attention has been given to preserving the natural characteristics of
Hopetoun Falls, Australia, while allowing ample access for visitors.
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world,
physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the
physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the
subatomic to the cosmic.
The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential
qualities, innate disposition", and literally means "birth".[1] Natura was
a Latin translation of the Greek word physis (φύσις), which originally
related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other
features of the world develop of their own accord.[2][3] The concept of
nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of
the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word
φύσις by pre-Socratic philosophers, and has
steadily gained currency ever since. This usage was confirmed during the
advent of modern scientific method in the last several centuries.
Within the various uses of the word today, "nature" may refer to the
general realm of various types of living plants and animals, and in some
cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects–the way that
particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as
the weather and geology of the Earth, and the matter and energy of which
all these things are composed. It is often taken to mean the "natural
environment" or wilderness–wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in
general those things that have not been substantially altered by human
intervention, or which persist despite human intervention. For, example,
manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered
part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, "human nature" or "the
whole of nature". This more traditional concept of natural things which
can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the
artificial, with the artificial being understood as that which has been
brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind. Depending on
the particular context, the term "natural" might also be distinguished
from the unnatural, the supernatural, and the artifactual.
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