ДЕЙСТВИЕ НЕПОСРЕДСТВЕННОЕ И НА РАССТОЯНИИ

Action, Immediate and at a Distance

Opposite concepts employed to explain the general character of the interaction of physical objects. The concept of immediate action states that an effect on a material object can be transmitted only from a given point in space to the immediately adjacent point and within a finite period of time. Action at a distance admits transmission from a distance with instantaneous speed, that is, virtually outside time and space.

After Newton, this conception was widely accepted in physics, although Newton himself realized that the forces of action at a distance, gravitation for example, were merely a formal device enabling him to give a limitedly correct description of observed phenomena. Final confirmation of the principle of immediate action came with the evolution of the concept of a physical field, the equations of which describe the condition of a system at a given point and moment as depending directly on the condition at the immediately preceding moment and adjacent point.