Degrees of freedom can mean:
- Degrees of freedom (mechanics), independent displacements and/or rotations that specify the orientation of the body or system
- Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry), a term used in explaining dependence on parameters, or the dimensions of a phase space
- Degrees of freedom (statistics), the number of values in the final calculation of a statistic that are free to vary
Famous quotes containing the words degrees of, degrees and/or freedom:
“So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,—both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT—as his RESISTANCE.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“For the profit of travel: in the first place, you get rid of a few prejudices.... The prejudiced against color finds several hundred millions of people of all shades of color, and all degrees of intellect, rank, and social worth, generals, judges, priests, and kings, and learns to give up his foolish prejudice.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)