Correspondence Principle and the Idealization

Abstract

The Correspondence Principle (CP) established by Niels Bohr¹ is a postulate for new theories (and, in the same time, a description of the way of introducing new theories) in contemporary physics. According to it, a new theory T ₂must be more general than the old theory T ₁ and must include it as a special case when some parameter p characteristic for T ₂tends to zero: p → 0 (or to infinity but then we can consider 1 /p). The physicists say also that T ₂ passes asymptotically into T ₁ as p → 0. The logicians and philosophers of science often say that T ₂ is a consequence of T ₁ and the assumption that p = 0:

$${T_2} \wedge p = 0 \to {T_{\text{1}}}$$

((1))

The relation of T ₂ to T ₁ is called Correspondence Relation (CR).