The Collaborative International Dictionary
Differential \Dif`fer*en"tial\, n.
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(Math.) An increment, usually an indefinitely small one, which is given to a variable quantity.
Note: According to the more modern writers upon the differential and integral calculus, if two or more quantities are dependent on each other, and subject to increments of value, their differentials need not be small, but are any quantities whose ratios to each other are the limits to which the ratios of the increments approximate, as these increments are reduced nearer and nearer to zero.
A small difference in rates which competing railroad lines, in establishing a common tariff, allow one of their number to make, in order to get a fair share of the business. The lower rate is called a differential rate. Differentials are also sometimes granted to cities.
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(Elec.)
One of two coils of conducting wire so related to one another or to a magnet or armature common to both, that one coil produces polar action contrary to that of the other.
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A form of conductor used for dividing and distributing the current to a series of electric lamps so as to maintain equal action in all.
--Knight.Partial differential (Math.), the differential of a function of two or more variables, when only one of the variables receives an increment.
Total differential (Math.), the differential of a function of two or more variables, when each of the variables receives an increment. The total differential of the function is the sum of all the partial differentials.
Usage examples of "partial differential".
In turn you must learn arithmetic, Euclidian geometry, high school algebra, differential and integral calculus, ordinary and partial differential equations, vector calculus, certain special functions of mathematical physics.
The earthier bits of dialogue, 1 explained, were the result of Gentry's years with the hairy-knuckled, hard-drinking engineers and mathematicians of JPL's Astrodynamics Division, where the Pasadena cops often have to be called in to settle bare-fisted fights over Bessel Functions and nonlinear partial differential equations.
Before noon, they had set up a series of partial differential equations which would go to the computer at their regular scheduled time to use it, and were drawing up elements of the circuit they wanted.
His final statement consisted of ten coupled, nonlinear, partial differential equations, relating the curvature of space-time to the presence of matter.
I have a feeling he's wrong in using partial differential equations only.
The necessary mathematics, of partial differential equations, was sitting there waiting for him.
Along the way, he realized that one of his assumptions, in combination with the simplified Navier Stokes equations, had led him into an exploration of a particularly interesting family of partial differential equations.
Unfortunately, finding the proper geometry involves lots of theory and the ability to solve some large partial differential equations.
Yet radio came about because a Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell, invented a term, which he called the displacement current, in a set of partial differential equations now known as Maxwell's equations.
You can calculate the cooling lifetime using heat conduction partial differential equations which—.
When not there, Kira knew, he could almost always be found training in a holosuite, battling anything from Capellan power cats to partial differential equations.