Ab initio

For other uses, seeAb initio (disambiguation).

Ab initio(/ˌæbɪˈnɪʃioʊ/ABin-ISH-ee-oh)is a Latin term meaning "from the beginning" and is derived from the Latinab( "from" ) +initio,ablativesingularofinitium( "beginning" ).

Etymology

c. 1600,from Latin, literally "from the beginning", from ablative case ofinitium"entrance", "beginning", related to verbinire"to go into", "enter upon", "begin".

Uses

Ab initio(abbreviation:ab init.) is used in several contexts, including the following:

Law

Inlaw,ab initiorefers to something being the case from the start or from the instant of the act rather than from when the court declared it so. For instance, the term "voidab initio"means" to be treated as invalid from the outset. "E.g., in manyjurisdictions,if a person signs a contract under duress, that contract is treated as being "voidab initio".

Typically, documents or acts which arevoidab initiocannot be fixed and if a jurisdiction, a document, or an act is so declared at law to be voidab initio,the parties are returned to their respective positions that they were at the beginning of the event.

"Voidab initio"is often contrasted with" voidable "in futuro,such documents which become void only as of the date of a certain event or of the judicial declaration to that effect. For example, termination of a contract only operatesin futuro.

An insurer facing a claim from an insured who had deceived the insurer on a material fact would claim that the insurance contract was voidab initio;it was null and void from the beginning and that since there was no legally enforceable contract, the insurer ought not to have to pay.

Science and engineering

In general, a calculation is said to beab initio(or "fromfirst principles") if it relies on basic and established laws of nature without additional assumptions or special models.

For example, anab initiocalculation of the properties of liquid water might start with the properties of the constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms and the laws of electrostatics and quantum mechanics. From these basics, the properties of isolated individual water molecules would be derived, followed by computations of the interactions of larger and larger groups of water molecules, until the bulk properties of water had been determined. This in contrast to an approach that uses approximations (which could allow for easier computations) that have no direct link to these first principles.

• Documentationof a process is said to beab initio(orfrom scratch,orfrom the ground up) if the documentation shows how to set up and complete the process from basic materials (to which a competent practitioner is expected to have access) without prior special preparation.
• Innuclear physics,the mass-energy of different nuclei can be determined withab initiomethodsby solving theSchrödinger equationover all particles.
• Likewise inchemistry,this refers toab initioquantum chemistry methods.
• Inbiophysics,this refers to a method for the prediction of protein structures in protein folding.
• Inbioinformatics,ab initio(orde novo) methods make predictions about biological features using only a computational model without extrinsic comparison to existing data.
• Inaviation,this refers to the first stage of flight training.

Other uses

• Inliterature,a story toldab initiois told from the beginning;Horacecalled this methodab ovo('from the egg'). This is as opposed toin medias res(in the middle of the story).
• In learning a subject or foreign language,ab initiorefers to study without previous knowledge or assumptions.

See also

• A priori
• Abatementab initio
• Ad fontes
• List of legal Latin terms

External links

• Definition at DictionaryArchived2012-10-25 at theWayback Machine