variational

This information measure, herein dubbed the variational information, meaningfully assigns a numerical bit-value to arbitrary state transitions of physical systems.

Dembski may look like a fake-scientist, he may act like a fake scientist, Mumon 2005

"Anytime you see some kind of variational depth in a rock like this, you interpret it to mean there is some kind of chemical alteration that has taken place since the rock was first exposed on the surface," Squyres explained.

Planetary Society Daily Almanac 2010

I suspect there is some extremal principle here, where the tuning is some variational principle on a partition function which results in a greatest upper bound on the measure of complexity which can exist in a local region.

Death in the Sky: M31 Shreds its Satellites | Universe Today 2010

Calculating integrals and minimizing functions for many-parameter variational wave functions of semiconductor nanostructures in very high magnetic fields was much more on my mind.

Wolfram Blog : 2007 : May 2007

Calculating integrals and minimizing functions for many-parameter variational wave functions of semiconductor nanostructures in very high magnetic fields was much more on my mind.

Wolfram Blog : Making the Mathematica 6 Spikey 2007

Neither would they seem necessarily to be only convenient mathematical fictions, as, for example, are the physically impossible dynamical evolutions of a system one integrates over in the variational derivation of the Euler-Lagrange equations, for, as we have remarked, many physicists and philosophers seem eager to find such a construction for the purpose of bestowing substantive and clear ontic status on singular structure.

Singularities and Black Holes Curiel, Erik 2009

Of particular importance here is the application of the variational principle to the QM of such systems.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Quantum Mechanics, But Were Afraid to Ask Sean 2008

Each form is reachable by small, selectable variational steps from simpler forms.

Blind Mice vs Behe; the Evolution of Vision - The Panda's Thumb 2006

Rather, they suggest that the pre-variationists held two variational beliefs that the transformationists did not: (1) that organisms inherit the traits of their parents regardless of their adaptive value and (2) that differential survival is relevant to species adaptation.

Intuitive Essentialism (IV) 2006

Now evidently Dembski has read Cosma Shalizi's critique of an earlier version of this paper here, but for the life of me, other than admitting Shalizi is right that Dembski's "variational information" really is a special case of the more general Rényi information, I can't find anything "revised" in this paper.

Dembski may look like a fake-scientist, he may act like a fake scientist, Mumon 2005