Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of, relating to, or being an unstable but relatively long-lived state of a chemical or physical system, as of a supersaturated solution or an excited atom.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In phys. ehem., having a stability of such sort that a minute impressed change of conditions may produce a disturbance not proportional to the impressed change.
- In thermodynamics, in a state intermediate between stable equilibrium and unstable equilibrium, but approaching stability as nearly as the conditions will permit.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective physics, chemistry Of or pertaining to a
physical orchemical state that is relativelylong-lived , but may decay to a lower energy state when slightly perturbed or through a quantum transition.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (of physical systems) continuing in its present state of equilibrium unless sufficiently disturbed to pass to a more stable state of equilibrium
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This spring (a period of great disappointment for our farmers) was a period of the so-called metastable conditions of rain clouds.
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This spring (a period of great disappointment for our farmers) was a period of the so-called metastable conditions of rain clouds.
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This spring (a period of great disappointment for our farmers) was a period of the so-called metastable conditions of rain clouds.
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This spring (a period of great disappointment for our farmers) was a period of the so-called metastable conditions of rain clouds.
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They manipulate the water in the xylem under negative pressure - what's called a metastable liquid state - right on the verge of becoming a vapor.
The Open Piehole 2008
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Setup or hold violations cause the output of the flip-flop to enter a symmetrically balanced transient state, called a metastable state.
EE Times-Asia 2008
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Technetium-99m, where "m" stands for "metastable" -, one resorts to another isotope, Molybdenum-99.
Backreaction 2008
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They manipulate the water in the xylem under negative pressure - what's called a metastable liquid state - right on the verge of becoming a vapor.
The Open Piehole 2008
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In this case, the anchoring and hence the unfriendliness/inconvenience for speculation would also mean that the currency regime would become "metastable" as market hedging is more difficult -- but this is a minor inconvenience as one can still speculate/hedge even on a fixed peg e.g. non-deliverable forward for RMB
Archive 2006-08-01 Sun Bin 2006
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In this case, the anchoring and hence the unfriendliness/inconvenience for speculation would also mean that the currency regime would become "metastable" as market hedging is more difficult -- but this is a minor inconvenience as one can still speculate/hedge even on a fixed peg e.g. non-deliverable forward for RMB
Commodity peg to export price vs peg to import price Sun Bin 2006
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