Fixed Point

"Fixed point" has many meanings in science, most of them mathematical.

  • Fixed point (mathematics)
  • Fixed-point iteration, a general method to compute the fixed point of an iterated function.
  • Fixed-point combinator
  • For "Fixed-point join" in databases, see Recursive join
  • Fixed-point arithmetic, a manner of doing arithmetic on computers
  • Benchmark (surveying), fixed points used by geodesists
  • For “fixed points” in physics, see Renormalization group
  • Fixed points are necessary for a watercraft to be moored to a quay.
  • Archimedes said δῶς μοι πᾶ στῶ καὶ τὰν γᾶν κινάσω, which is sometimes translated as “Give me a fixed point and I will move the world.”

Famous quotes containing the words fixed and/or point:

    “Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.”
    —Truman Capote (1924–1984)

    “...there is a difference between being convinced and being stubborn. I’m not certain what the difference is, but I do know that if you butt your head against a stone wall long enough, at some point you realize the wall is stone and that your head is flesh and blood.”
    —Maya Angelou (b. 1928)