Neutral zone may refer to:
In sports:
- Neutral zone (American football), the region between offensive and defensive sides prior to the snap of the ball on a scrimmage play
- Neutral zone (ice hockey), zone between the blue lines in ice hockey
- A non-competitive segment of a few miles at the beginning of a bicycle race
In Star Trek:
- Neutral zone (pinball), target in the Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball game
- Neutral zone (Star Trek), "buffer zone" between the territories of two different powers in the fictional Star Trek universe
- "The Neutral Zone" (TNG episode), the finale of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation
In geography:
- Neutral zone (territorial entity)
In other fields:
- Neutral zone (control theory), concept in control theory
- A short segment of railway track on which electric trains operate but which lacks the overhead lines that power them. Residual momentum is required for such trains to cross a neutral zone.
Famous quotes containing the words neutral and/or zone:
“The seashore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-traveled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There was a continuous movement now, from Zone Five to Zone Four. And from Zone Four to Zone Three, and from us, up the pass. There was a lightness, a freshness, and an enquiry and a remaking and an inspiration where there had been only stagnation. And closed frontiers. For this is how we all see it now.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)