DISCONTINUOUS • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Discontinuous

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adjective

Discontinuous adj.

Not continuous; interrupted; broken off. "A path that is zigzag, discontinuous, and intersected at every turn by human negligence."

Exhibiting a dissolution of continuity; gaping. "Discontinuous wound."

Discontinuous function (Math.), a function which for certain values or between certain values of the variable does not vary continuously as the variable increases. The discontinuity may, for example, consist of an abrupt change in the value of the function, or an abrupt change in its law of variation, or the function may become imaginary.

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Etymology of 'Discontinuous'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Discontinuous" Quotes from Famous Books

... living like the lifeless, and think all reality, however fluid, under the form of the sharply defined solid. We are at ease only in the discontinuous, in the immobile, in the dead. Perceiving in an organism only parts external to parts, the understanding has the choice between two systems of explanation only: either to regard the infinitely complex (and thereby infinitely ...

— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... cases so far apart on the hayloft as to permit 10 per cent of our flasks to take in air without contracting contamination. A quarter of a century ago Pasteur proved the cause of 'so-called spontaneous generation' to be discontinuous. I have already referred to his observation that 12 out of 20 flasks opened on the plains escaped infection, while 19 out of 20 flasks opened on the Mer de Glace escaped. Our own experiment at the Bel Alp is a more emphatic instance of the same kind, 90 per cent of the ...

— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... semiarid; mild, wet winters with hot, dry summers along coast; drier with cold winters and hot summers on high plateau; sirocco is a hot, dust/sand-laden wind especially common in summer Terrain: mostly high plateau and desert; some mountains; narrow, discontinuous coastal plain Natural resources: crude oil, natural gas, iron ore, phosphates, uranium, lead, zinc Land use: arable land 3%; permanent crops NEGL%; meadows and pastures 13%; forest and woodland 2%; other 82%; includes irrigated NEGL% Environment: mountainous areas subject ...

— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... went on, "people used to think matter and motion were continuous, but scientists have proved that they are discontinuous. Now some of them think time may be, too. Maybe everything is just imaginary, and appears to our senses in whatever way we want it to appear. We are so well-trained that we see everything just as we are taught to see it by generations of artists, writers, and other symbol-makers. If we could see ...

— Vanishing Point • C.C. Beck

... is given. Professor Shield Nicholson finds two laws or tendencies which operate in reducing this disturbing influence of machinery. He holds (1) that a radical change made in the methods of production will be gradually and continuously adopted; (2) that these radical changes—these discontinuous leaps—tend to give place to advances by ...

— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

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