Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Continuum (pl.: continua or continuums) theories or models explain variation as involving gradual quantitative transitions without abrupt changes or discontinuities. In contrast, categorical theories or models explain variation using qualitatively different states. [1]
The concept of a continuum underlies the mathematical framework for studying large-scale forces and deformations in materials. Although materials are composed of discrete atoms and molecules, separated by empty space or microscopic cracks and crystallographic defects, physical phenomena can often be modeled by considering a substance distributed throughout some region of space.
Continuum morphology, in plant morphology, underlining the continuum between morphological categories; Continuum concept, in psychology; Continuum (physics), continuous media; Space-time continuum, any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum; Continuum theory of specific heats of solids, see Debye model
In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetime diagrams are useful in visualizing and understanding relativistic effects, such as how different observers perceive where and when events ...
The continuum concept is an idea, coined by Jean Liedloff in her 1975 book The Continuum Concept, that human beings have an innate set of expectations (which Liedloff calls the continuum) that our evolution as a species has designed us to meet in order to achieve optimal physical, mental, and emotional development and adaptability.
Cantor's diagonal argument shows that is strictly greater than , but it does not specify whether it is the least cardinal greater than (that is, ).Indeed the assumption that = is the well-known Continuum Hypothesis, which was shown to be consistent with the standard ZFC axioms for set theory by Kurt Gödel and to be independent of it by Paul Cohen.
For example, in the mass continuity equation for flowing water, if 1 gram per second of water is flowing through a pipe with cross-sectional area 1 cm 2, then the average mass flux j inside the pipe is (1 g/s) / cm 2, and its direction is along the pipe in the direction that the water is flowing. Outside the pipe, where there is no water, the ...
[1] Johannes Schmidt used a second metaphor to explain the formation of a language from a continuum. The continuum is at first like a smooth, sloping line. Speakers in close proximity tend to unify their speech, creating a stepped line out of the sloped line. These steps are the dialects.