Spectrum
Pronunciation
- Canada IPA: /ˈspektrəm/
- US IPA: /ˈspɛkt(ʃ)ɹəm/
- Rhymes: -ɛktrəm
Origin
From Latin spectrum ("appearance, image, apparition"), from speciÅ ("look at, view"). (see scope)
Full definition of spectrum
Noun
- Specter, apparition. from early 17th c.
- A range; a continuous, infinite, one-dimensional set, possibly bounded by extremes.
- 2012, November 7, Matt Bai, Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds, As Mr. Obama prepared to take the oath, his approval rating touched a remarkable 70 percent in some polling — a reflection of good will across the political spectrum.
- Specifically, a range of colours representing light (electromagnetic radiation) of contiguous frequencies; hence electromagnetic spectrum, visible spectrum, ultraviolet spectrum, etc. from later 17th c.
- 2010 October 30, Jim Giles, Jammed!, in New Scientist,Current 3G technologies can send roughly 1 bit of data - a one or a zero - per second over each 1 Hz of spectrum that the operator owns.
- (chemistry) The pattern of absorption or emission of radiation produced by a substance when subjected to energy (radiation, heat, electricity, etc.).
- (mathematics, linear algebra) The set of eigenvalues of a matrix.
- (mathematics, functional analysis) Of a bounded linear operator A, the set of scalar values λ such that the operator A—λI, where I denotes the identity operator, does not have a bounded inverse; intended as a generalisation of the linear algebra sense.