Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of the spatially extended mathematical objects of zero or more dimensions used in string theory. A one-dimensional brane, referred to as a “1-brane,” is a string.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun physics A hypothetical object extending across a number of (often specified) spatial dimensions, with strings in string theory seen as one-dimensional examples.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for membrane (a membrane originally being a 2-brane or two-dimensional analogue of a 1-brane or string).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Contracted form of membrane.

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Examples

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  • From Wikipedia:

    In theoretical physics, a membrane, brane, or p-brane is a spatially extended, mathematical concept that appears in string theory and its relatives (M-theory and brane cosmology). The variable p refers to the spatial dimension of the brane. That is, a 0-brane is a zero-dimensional pointlike particle, a 1-brane is a string, a 2-brane is a "membrane", etc. Every p-brane sweeps out a (p+1)-dimensional world volume as it propagates through spacetime.

    February 21, 2008

  • in the samebranevein?

    February 13, 2014