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In mathematics, a metric space is a set together with a notion of distance between its elements, usually called points. The distance is measured by a function called a metric or distance function. [1] Metric spaces are the most general setting for studying many of the concepts of mathematical analysis and geometry.
A metric or distance function is a function d which takes pairs of points or objects to real numbers and satisfies the following rules: The distance between an object and itself is always zero. The distance between distinct objects is always positive. Distance is symmetric: the distance from x to y is always the same as the distance from y to x.
The one anisotropic shape whose excluded volume can be expressed analytically is the spherocylinder; the solution of this problem is a classic work by Onsager. [6] The problem was tackled by considering the distance between two line segments, which are the center lines of the capped cylinders. Results for other shapes are not readily available.
In this theory, the class P consists of all decision problems (defined below) solvable on a deterministic sequential machine in a duration polynomial in the size of the input; the class NP consists of all decision problems whose positive solutions are verifiable in polynomial time given the right information, or equivalently, whose solution can ...
The problem is also important because some more complicated problems in classical physics (such as the two-body problem with forces along the line connecting the two bodies) can be reduced to a central-force problem. Finally, the solution to the central-force problem often makes a good initial approximation of the true motion, as in calculating ...
The Euclidean distance is the prototypical example of the distance in a metric space, [10] and obeys all the defining properties of a metric space: [11] It is symmetric, meaning that for all points and , (,) = (,). That is (unlike road distance with one-way streets) the distance between two points does not depend on which of the two points is ...
A Fermi problem (or Fermi quiz, Fermi question, Fermi estimate), also known as an order-of-magnitude problem (or order-of-magnitude estimate, order estimation), is an estimation problem in physics or engineering education, designed to teach dimensional analysis or approximation of extreme scientific calculations.
The three-body problem is a special case of the n-body problem, which describes how n objects move under one of the physical forces, such as gravity. These problems have a global analytical solution in the form of a convergent power series, as was proven by Karl F. Sundman for n = 3 and by Qiudong Wang for n > 3 (see n-body problem for details