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Quantity is among the basic classes of things along with quality, substance, change, and relation. Some quantities are such by their inner nature (as number), while others function as states (properties, dimensions, attributes) of things such as heavy and light, long and short, broad and narrow, small and great, or much and little.
Resource competition can vary from completely symmetric (all individuals receive the same amount of resources, irrespective of their size, known also as scramble competition) to perfectly size symmetric (all individuals exploit the same amount of resource per unit biomass) to absolutely size asymmetric (the largest individuals exploit all the available resource).
The final column lists some special properties that some of the quantities have, such as their scaling behavior (i.e. whether the quantity is intensive or extensive), their transformation properties (i.e. whether the quantity is a scalar, vector, matrix or tensor), and whether the quantity is conserved.
An extensive property is a physical quantity whose value is proportional to the size of the system it describes, [8] or to the quantity of matter in the system. For example, the mass of a sample is an extensive quantity; it depends on the amount of substance. The related intensive quantity is the density which is independent of the amount.
In mechanics, a constant of motion is a physical quantity conserved throughout the motion, imposing in effect a constraint on the motion. However, it is a mathematical constraint, the natural consequence of the equations of motion, rather than a physical constraint (which would require extra constraint forces).
This category identifies physical quantities which are necessary defined quantities, measured, manipulated, generally used by physicists, engineers, chemists, etc. Contents Top
A systems of quantities relates physical quantities, and due to this dependence, a limited number of quantities can serve as a basis in terms of which the dimensions of all the remaining quantities of the system can be defined. A set of mutually independent quantities may be chosen by convention to act as such a set, and are called base quantities.
An intensive property does not depend on the size or extent of the system, nor on the amount of matter in the object, while an extensive property shows an additive relationship. These classifications are in general only valid in cases when smaller subdivisions of the sample do not interact in some physical or chemical process when combined.