Duality (mathematics)In mathematics, a duality translates concepts, theorems or mathematical structures into other concepts, theorems or structures, in a one-to-one fashion, often (but not always) by means of an involution operation: if the dual of A is B, then the dual of B is A. Such involutions sometimes have fixed points, so that the dual of A is A itself. For example, Desargues' theorem is self-dual in this sense under the standard duality in projective geometry. In mathematical contexts, duality has numerous meanings.
General topologyIn mathematics, general topology (or point set topology) is the branch of topology that deals with the basic set-theoretic definitions and constructions used in topology. It is the foundation of most other branches of topology, including differential topology, geometric topology, and algebraic topology. The fundamental concepts in point-set topology are continuity, compactness, and connectedness: Continuous functions, intuitively, take nearby points to nearby points.
Probability axiomsThe Kolmogorov axioms are the foundations of probability theory introduced by Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov in 1933. These axioms remain central and have direct contributions to mathematics, the physical sciences, and real-world probability cases. An alternative approach to formalising probability, favoured by some Bayesians, is given by Cox's theorem. The assumptions as to setting up the axioms can be summarised as follows: Let be a measure space with being the probability of some event , and .
Thermodynamic equilibriumThermodynamic equilibrium is an axiomatic concept of thermodynamics. It is an internal state of a single thermodynamic system, or a relation between several thermodynamic systems connected by more or less permeable or impermeable walls. In thermodynamic equilibrium, there are no net macroscopic flows of matter nor of energy within a system or between systems. In a system that is in its own state of internal thermodynamic equilibrium, no macroscopic change occurs.
Random cluster modelIn statistical mechanics, probability theory, graph theory, etc. the random cluster model is a random graph that generalizes and unifies the Ising model, Potts model, and percolation model. It is used to study random combinatorial structures, electrical networks, etc. It is also referred to as the RC model or sometimes the FK representation after its founders Cees Fortuin and Piet Kasteleyn. Let be a graph, and be a bond configuration on the graph that maps each edge to a value of either 0 or 1.
Subspace topologyIn topology and related areas of mathematics, a subspace of a topological space X is a subset S of X which is equipped with a topology induced from that of X called the subspace topology (or the relative topology, or the induced topology, or the trace topology). Given a topological space and a subset of , the subspace topology on is defined by That is, a subset of is open in the subspace topology if and only if it is the intersection of with an open set in .
Event (probability theory)In probability theory, an event is a set of outcomes of an experiment (a subset of the sample space) to which a probability is assigned. A single outcome may be an element of many different events, and different events in an experiment are usually not equally likely, since they may include very different groups of outcomes. An event consisting of only a single outcome is called an or an ; that is, it is a singleton set. An event is said to if contains the outcome of the experiment (or trial) (that is, if ).
Bayesian probabilityBayesian probability (ˈbeɪziən or ˈbeɪʒən ) is an interpretation of the concept of probability, in which, instead of frequency or propensity of some phenomenon, probability is interpreted as reasonable expectation representing a state of knowledge or as quantification of a personal belief. The Bayesian interpretation of probability can be seen as an extension of propositional logic that enables reasoning with hypotheses; that is, with propositions whose truth or falsity is unknown.
Critical point (thermodynamics)In thermodynamics, a critical point (or critical state) is the end point of a phase equilibrium curve. One example is the liquid–vapor critical point, the end point of the pressure–temperature curve that designates conditions under which a liquid and its vapor can coexist. At higher temperatures, the gas cannot be liquefied by pressure alone. At the critical point, defined by a critical temperature Tc and a critical pressure pc, phase boundaries vanish.
Product topologyIn topology and related areas of mathematics, a product space is the Cartesian product of a family of topological spaces equipped with a natural topology called the product topology. This topology differs from another, perhaps more natural-seeming, topology called the box topology, which can also be given to a product space and which agrees with the product topology when the product is over only finitely many spaces.
Verdier dualityIn mathematics, Verdier duality is a cohomological duality in algebraic topology that generalizes Poincaré duality for manifolds. Verdier duality was introduced in 1965 by as an analog for locally compact topological spaces of Alexander Grothendieck's theory of Poincaré duality in étale cohomology for schemes in algebraic geometry. It is thus (together with the said étale theory and for example Grothendieck's coherent duality) one instance of Grothendieck's six operations formalism.
Continuum limitIn mathematical physics and mathematics, the continuum limit or scaling limit of a lattice model refers to its behaviour in the limit as the lattice spacing goes to zero. It is often useful to use lattice models to approximate real-world processes, such as Brownian motion. Indeed, according to Donsker's theorem, the discrete random walk would, in the scaling limit, approach the true Brownian motion. The term continuum limit mostly finds use in the physical sciences, often in reference to models of aspects of quantum physics, while the term scaling limit is more common in mathematical use.
