Characteristic

Look up characteristic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A characteristic is a distinguishing feature of a person or thing. It may refer to:

Computing

  • Characteristic (biased exponent), an ambiguous term formerly used by some authors to specify some type of exponent of a floating point number
  • Characteristic (significand), an ambiguous term formerly used by some authors to specify the significand of a floating point number

Science

Mathematics

  • Characteristic (algebra) of a ring, the smallest common cycle length of the ring's addition operation
  • Characteristic (logarithm), integer part of a common logarithm
  • Characteristic function, usually the indicator function of a subset, though the term has other meanings in specific domains
  • Characteristic polynomial, a polynomial associated with a square matrix in linear algebra
  • Characteristic subgroup, a subgroup that is invariant under all automorphisms in group theory
  • Characteristic value, another name for the eigenvalue of a matrix
  • Characteristic vector (disambiguation), another name for eigenvector of a matrix
  • Characteristic word, a subclass of Sturmian word
  • Euler characteristic, a topological invariant
  • Method of characteristics, a technique for solving partial differential equations

Other uses

  • Light characteristic, pattern of a lighted beacon
  • Another name for ability score in Dungeons & Dragons

See also

  • All pages with titles containing Characteristic
  • Characteristicks, a 1711 philosophical treatise by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
Topics referred to by the same term
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