"Discontinuity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... changes give us no right to believe that there has been any discontinuity in natural processes. There is no trace of general cataclysms, of universal deluges, or sudden destructions of a whole fauna or flora. The appearances which were formerly interpreted in that way have all been ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... that the wing of a bird "was developed in any other way than by a comparatively sudden modification of a marked and important kind;" and apparently he would extend the same view to the wings of bats and pterodactyles. This conclusion, which implies great breaks or discontinuity in the series, appears to me improbable ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... is the nature of life. Is it continuous, as it appears in vegetation and the animal kingdom, or is it discontinuous like the rocks on the mountainside or the grains of sand on the seashore? Those who live for the moment prefer discontinuity. Those who observe their natural environment are forced to the conclusion that life today is part of a sequence or progression which relates the life of yesterday to that ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... rule, they continue to be held in more or less close apposition by means of other cells and binding membranes,—with the result of giving rise to those various "tissues," which in turn go to constitute the material of "organs." I cannot suppose, however, that any advocate of discontinuity will care to take his stand at this point. But, if any one were so foolish as to do so, it would be easy to dislodge him by describing the state of matters in some of the Protozoa where a number of unicellular "individuals" are organically united so as to form a "colony." These ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... the natural result of the mixture of father and mother in his temperament, the resolution and persistence of the one, like sound timber wormholed and made shaky, as it were, by the other's infirmity of will and discontinuity of purpose. In natures so imperfectly mixed it is not uncommon to find vehemence of intention the prelude and counterpoise of weak performance, the conscious nature striving to keep up its self-respect ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... the nature of life. Is it continuous, as it appears in vegetation and the animal kingdom, or is it discontinuous like the rocks on the mountainside or the grains of sand on the seashore? Those who live for the moment prefer discontinuity. Those who observe their natural environment are forced to the conclusion that life today is part of a sequence or progression which relates the life of ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... shows something of the range of items that farmers use and that can be preserved and shown. The variety nearly equals the volume. Most museums try to avoid duplication. Even so, few museums manage to collect a continuous series of things showing any one line of development. The discontinuity of farm objects on hand virtually rules out the telling of a coherent and complete history of agriculture. Nevertheless, the museum can show something about the major technological developments in agriculture. The evolution of the plow, the reaper, or the tractor can ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker
... sawtooth (up-down-up-down) oscillations at the shortest wavelength representable on the grid. If an algorithm is unstable, this is often the most unstable waveform, so it grows to dominate the solution. Alternatively, stable (though inaccurate) wiggles can be generated near a discontinuity by a Gibbs phenomenon. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0 |
