Cracking may refer to:
- Cracking, the formation of a fracture or partial fracture in a solid material
- Performing a sternotomy
- Fluid catalytic cracking, a catalytic process widely used in oil refineries for cracking large hydrocarbon molecules into smaller molecules
- Cracking (chemistry), the decomposition of complex organic molecules into smaller ones
- Cracking joints, the practice of manipulating one's bone joints to make a sharp sound
- Cracking codes, see cryptanalysis
- Whip cracking
- Safe cracking
In computing:
- Password cracking, the process of discovering the plaintext of an encrypted computer password
- Cracking, the defeating of security devices in computer networks
- Software cracking, the defeating of software copy protection
Famous quotes containing the word cracking:
“Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Hume’s doctrine was that the circumstances vary, the amount of happiness does not; that the beggar cracking fleas in the sunshine under a hedge, and the duke rolling by in his chariot; the girl equipped for her first ball, and the orator returning triumphant from the debate, had different means, but the same quantity of pleasant excitement.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)