Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In embryology, the property whereby all the parts of the unsegmented egg are alike capable of giving rise to any portion of the embryonic body: opposed to anisotropy.
- noun The state or property of being isotropic.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Physics) Uniformity of physical properties in all directions in a body; absence of all kinds of polarity; specifically, equal elasticity in all directions.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun geometry, physics The property of being
identical , or having the same physical properties, in alldirections .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (physics) the property of being isotropic; having the same value when measured in different directions
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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(Anisotropy is the opposite of isotropy, which is the condition of having the same value when measured from different directions.)
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Put in slightly different terms: isotropic and Quinean processes are global rather than local, and since globality rules out encapsulation, isotropy and Quineanness rule out encapsulation.
Modularity of Mind Robbins, Philip 2009
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Both isotropy and Quineanness are features that preclude encapsulation, since their possession by a system would require potentially unlimited access to the contents of central memory, and hence cognitive penetrability to the max.
Modularity of Mind Robbins, Philip 2009
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It is possible that statistical isotropy/homogeneity is violated at very high significance in some specific fashion that does not correspond precisely to any of the particular observational effects that have been searched for, but that would stand out dramatically in a better-targeted analysis.
A Special Place in the Universe Sean 2008
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There is another important motivation for studying deviations from pure statistical isotropy of cosmological perturbations: a number of analyses have found evidence that such deviations might exist in the real world.
A Special Place in the Universe Sean 2008
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The most compelling evidence for large-scale isotropy comes from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the leftover radiation from the Big Bang.
A New CMB Anomaly? Sean 2008
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Nevertheless, there is a subtle way for the universe to break isotropy and have a preferred direction: if the tiny observed perturbations somehow have a different character in one direction than in others.
A New CMB Anomaly? Sean 2008
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One of the important features of the universe around us is that, on sufficiently large scales, it looks pretty much the same in every direction — “isotropy,” in cosmology lingo.
A New CMB Anomaly? Sean 2008
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They just decided it would be cool to explore, and will shed no tears if inflation turns out to be a nice creamy vanilla of isotropy.
Dude! Where’s my baryons? Julianne 2007
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Personally, I think that the looming flaw in all of these ideas is that they take the homogeneity and isotropy of our universe too seriously.
How Did the Universe Start? Sean 2007
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