What is imponderable?

What Does imponderable Mean

The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) recognizes three meanings of the imponderable term . In the first two meanings, the concept is used as an adjective to qualify that which cannot be weighed or that exceeds any type of weighting .

In the field of physics, it was formerly believed that there was an invisible fluid that filled space and that, when vibrating, transmitted heat, light and other forms of energy. According to this hypothesis, said fluid - baptized as ether - was imponderable (there was no way to weigh or quantify it).
The most common use of the concept, however, is linked to what can not be predicted or whose effects are impossible to calculate . The imponderable, in this framework, is unpredictable .

For example: "Unless something imponderable occurs, this weekend we will go to rest in a cabin in the mountains" , "The coach has already defined who will be the players who will take to the field in the debut of the selected team in the Copa del World, although there can always be an imponderable that forces us to modify the plans " , " The closure of the company was imponderable as there was no alarm signal . "
Suppose a family prepares to go on vacation. The group already has the tickets to fly from their city of residence to a foreign tourist destination. While these people are at the airport waiting for the take-off time, the airport terminal workers suddenly go on strike and refuse to carry out the procedures so that passengers can board. The strike was decreed suddenly, without any kind of notice. Therefore, for the family in question it is an imponderable that, at least momentarily, prevents them from traveling.
The term imponderable is not very common in everyday speech, and for this reason it can be very useful to refer to its synonyms to better understand its meaning and nuances. In this particular case, we can find two large groups, which are presented below: on the one hand they are priceless, immeasurable, unbeatable, priceless and unsurpassed ; on the other, we have chance, unpredictability, eventualities, contingencies and risks . With regard to antonyms, the most common of them is foresight .
At first glance, in the second list of synonyms we can notice a very particular detail: there are several nouns, instead of adjectives. Far from being an error, this peculiarity responds to the fact that the imponderable term itself can act as an adjective (when we use it to describe things that we cannot weigh or that exceed any weight) or as a noun (in cases where denotes a situation that is impossible to foresee or that has inestimable consequences ).

If we look again at two of the examples presented in the previous paragraphs, we will be able to notice cases in which the term is used with its substantive function : when talking about the World Cup and the definition of the squad, which will only change if a imponderable ; in the situation of the family that cannot travel because of an imponderable , more precisely of the sudden strike by the airport workers.
The relationship between the two main meanings of this word may seem difficult to establish at first; However, if we think that something that cannot be weighed is also invisible or at least imperceptible to humans, we can conclude that it will be impossible to foresee in the same way. That said, it is understandable that there are not many antonyms, since in general things that are not imponderable are simply " normal ."

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