Look up characteristic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A characteristic is a distinguishing feature of a person or thing. It may refer to:

Contents

• Computing
• Science
• Mathematics
• Other uses
• See also

Computing

• Characteristic (biased exponent), an ambiguous term formerly used by some authors to specify some type of exponent of a floating point number
• Characteristic (significand), an ambiguous term formerly used by some authors to specify the significand of a floating point number

Science

• I–V or current–voltage characteristic, the current in a circuit as a function of the applied voltage
• Receiver operating characteristic

Mathematics

• Characteristic (algebra) of a ring, the smallest common cycle length of the ring's addition operation
• Characteristic (logarithm), integer part of a common logarithm
• Characteristic function, usually the indicator function of a subset, though the term has other meanings in specific domains
• Characteristic polynomial, a polynomial associated with a square matrix in linear algebra
• Characteristic subgroup, a subgroup that is invariant under all automorphisms in group theory
• Characteristic value, another name for the eigenvalue of a matrix
• Characteristic vector (disambiguation), another name for eigenvector of a matrix
• Characteristic word, a subclass of Sturmian word
• Euler characteristic, a topological invariant
• Method of characteristics, a technique for solving partial differential equations

Other uses

• Light characteristic, pattern of a lighted beacon
• Another name for ability score in Dungeons & Dragons

See also

• All pages with titles containing Characteristic
• Characteristicks , a 1711 philosophical treatise by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
• Property (philosophy)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Characteristic.
If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.