I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we only tune in.~ George Washington CarverNature, 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.
[4][5] 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.
