| 释义 |
ˈquantal, a.
[Orig. f. as quantative a. + -al1. Later f. quantum.]
†1. = aliquant. Obs. rare—1.
a1696Scarburgh Euclid (1705) 177 A Quantal part measures not the whole: but repeated is either less or greater than it.
2. a. Composed of discrete units; varying in steps, not continuously.
1917F. H. Pratt in Amer. Jrnl. Physiol. XLIV. 518 Regarding the effective energy content of a biological system discharging always to full capacity as a physiological quantum, I purpose to use the derivative quantal to express..the conception of structural carriers of such integers of energy in effects discontinuously graded. Ibid., A series of responsive values would be quantal when composed of discontinuous steps. 1919Ibid. XLIX. 38 That tetanic contractions are quantal is shown even more clearly in figure 15. 1958Oxf. Univ. Gaz. 2 Oct. 84/1 Three problems arising in the analysis of quantal data. 1964Language XL. 206 The most salient characteristic of these linguistic primes..is their discreteness, their discontinuity... It is obviously their quantal attributes which distinguish linguistic primes from the species units of other behavioural sciences, e.g. the ‘culture trait’ of anthropology.
b. Biol. and Med. Of an effect or response (see quots.).
1933J. H. Gaddum in Med. Res. Council Special Rep. Ser. No. 183. 5 The term ‘quantal response’ is used in this paper for any ‘all-or-none’ biological reaction, i.e. a reaction of such a type, or observed under such conditions, that only the bare fact of its presence or absence in each animal is recorded. 1954Proc. R. Soc. Med. XLVII. 203 The third kind of method used..to assay drugs depends upon quantal effects. These effects are not measured but recorded as positive or absent and the number of positive effects is counted. 1974M. C. Gerald Pharmacol. iii. 58 Does the rat die at a given dose of poison or not? Let us assume that this quantal (all-or-none) response follows a normal distribution.
c. Physics. Of, pertaining to, or being a quantum or the quantum theory.
1936C. G. Darwin in Nature 28 Nov. 909/1 One may not infrequently see in learned journals such a phrase as ‘This may be proved by quantum theoretical methods.’.. The proper English form would be quantum theory methods, though even that is very clumsy, and quantum methods is quite good enough... The right procedure is to coin the adjective quantal. To justify its adequacy it is only necessary to notice the impossibility of finding anything that would be quantally right, but quantum-mechanically wrong. 1951E. M. Corson Perturbation Methods iii. 36 If q, p are to be canonically conjugate in the quantal sense. 1954Jrnl. Physiol. CXXIV. 571 The number of quantal units responding to a nerve impulse fluctuates in a random manner. 1975Physics Bull. Dec. 545/3 Anybody who wishes to learn the mathematics of coherence, classical and quantal, of light fields and their interaction with atoms can do no better than turn to this book. 1978Nature 12 Jan. 191/1 The transmitter, synthesised and packaged on the spot, is released in quantal, countable packets.
Hence ˈquantally adv.
1936[see 2 c above]. 1957Psychol. Rev. LXIV. 137/1 Such preactivation can be produced by gradual learning or quantally by instruction. 1970Nature 5 Sept. 1006/2 Vesicles slotted between dense projections are thought to release transmitter quantally by exocytosis through the membrane into the cleft. 1978Ibid. 13 July 136/1 The small standard error in each case shows clearly that the V2 change is quantal and, hence, that the junctional conductance itself changes quantally. |