Distance

Distance

Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are. In physics or everyday discussion, distance may refer to a physical length, or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). In mathematics, a distance function or metric is a generalization of the concept of physical distance. A metric is a function that behaves according to a specific set of rules, and provides a concrete way of describing what it means for elements of some space to be "close to" or "far away from" each other. In most cases, "distance from A to B" is interchangeable with "distance between B and A".

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Famous quotes containing the word distance:

    The mystery of the evening-star brilliant in silence and distance between the downward-surging plunge of the sun and the vast, hollow seething of inpouring night. The magnificence of the watchful morning-star, that watches between the night and the day, the gleaming clue to the two opposites.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    Letters to absence can a voice impart,
    And lend a tongue when distance gags the heart.
    Horace Walpole (1717–1797)

    Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning—an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)