Degrees of Freedom

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:

    “Complete courage and absolute cowardice are extremes that very few men fall into. The vast middle space contains all the intermediate kinds and degrees of courage; and these differ as much from one another as men’s faces or their humors do.”
    —François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

    “When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me,—when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is no more. When I feel that we two meet in a perception, that our two souls are tinged with the same hue, and do as it were run into one, why should I measure degrees of latitude, why should I count Egyptian years?”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Stone walls do not a prison make,
    Nor iron bars a cage;
    Minds innocent and quiet take
    That for an hermitage;
    If I have freedom in my love
    And in my soul am free,
    Angels alone, that soar above,
    Enjoy such liberty.”
    —Richard Lovelace (1618–1658)