Formal Definition
Mathematically, an energy landscape is a continuous function associating each physical state with an energy, where is a topological space.
In the continuous case, where is the number of degrees of freedom of the system. The graph of a continuous energy landscape is a hypersurface in .
Hills and valleys in the energy lanscape correpond to local maxima and minima of, respectively.
Read more about this topic: Energy Landscape
Famous quotes containing the words formal and/or definition:
“The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral.”
—Simon Hoggart (b. 1946)
“It is very hard to give a just definition of love. The most we can say of it is this: that in the soul, it is a desire to rule; in the spirit, it is a sympathy; and in the body, it is but a hidden and subtle desire to possess—after many mysteries—what one loves.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)