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

Computing

Characteristic (biased exponent) In IEEE 754 Floating-point arithmetic, floating-point numbers, the exponent is biased in the biasing, engineering sense of the word – the value stored is offset from the actual value by the exponent bias, also called a biased exponent. Biasing i ...

, an ambiguous term formerly used by some authors to specify some type of exponent of a floating point number *

Characteristic (significand) The significand (also coefficient, sometimes argument, or more ambiguously mantissa, fraction, or characteristic) is the first (left) part of a number in scientific notation or related concepts in floating-point representation, consisting of its s ...

, an ambiguous term formerly used by some authors to specify the significand of a floating point number

Science

*''I–V'' or

current–voltage characteristic A current–voltage characteristic or I–V curve (current–voltage curve) is a relationship, typically represented as a chart or graph, between the electric current through a circuit, device, or material, and the corresponding voltage, or p ...

, the current in a circuit as a function of the applied voltage *

Receiver operating characteristic A receiver operating characteristic curve, or ROC curve, is a graph of a function, graphical plot that illustrates the performance of a binary classifier model (can be used for multi class classification as well) at varying threshold values. ROC ...

Mathematics

Characteristic (algebra) In mathematics, the characteristic of a ring , often denoted , is defined to be the smallest positive number of copies of the ring's multiplicative identity () that will sum to the additive identity (). If no such number exists, the ring is said ...

of a ring, the smallest common cycle length of the ring's addition operation *

Characteristic (logarithm) In mathematics, the common logarithm (aka "standard logarithm") is the logarithm with base 10. It is also known as the decadic logarithm, the decimal logarithm and the Briggsian logarithm. The name "Briggsian logarithm" is in honor of the British ...

, integer part of a common logarithm *

Characteristic function In mathematics, the term "characteristic function" can refer to any of several distinct concepts: * The indicator function of a subset, that is the function \mathbf_A\colon X \to \, which for a given subset ''A'' of ''X'', has value 1 at points ...

, usually the indicator function of a subset, though the term has other meanings in specific domains *

Characteristic polynomial In linear algebra, the characteristic polynomial of a square matrix is a polynomial which is invariant under matrix similarity and has the eigenvalues as roots. It has the determinant and the trace of the matrix among its coefficients. The ...

, a polynomial associated with a square matrix in linear algebra *

Characteristic subgroup In mathematics, particularly in the area of abstract algebra known as group theory, a characteristic subgroup is a subgroup that is mapped to itself by every automorphism of the parent group. Because every conjugation map is an inner automorphis ...

, a subgroup that is invariant under all automorphisms in group theory *

Characteristic value In linear algebra, an eigenvector ( ) or characteristic vector is a vector that has its direction unchanged (or reversed) by a given linear transformation. More precisely, an eigenvector \mathbf v of a linear transformation T is scaled by a c ...

, another name for the eigenvalue of a matrix *

Characteristic vector (disambiguation) A characteristic vector may refer to: * an Eigenvalues and eigenvectors, eigenvector * an indicator vector {{disamb ...

, another name for eigenvector of a matrix *

Characteristic word In mathematics, a Sturmian word (Sturmian sequence or billiard sequence), named after Jacques Charles François Sturm, is a certain kind of infinitely long sequence of characters. Such a sequence can be generated by considering a game of Englis ...

, a subclass of Sturmian word *

Euler characteristic In mathematics, and more specifically in algebraic topology and polyhedral combinatorics, the Euler characteristic (or Euler number, or Euler–Poincaré characteristic) is a topological invariant, a number that describes a topological space's ...

, a topological invariant *

Method of characteristics Method (, methodos, from μετά/meta "in pursuit or quest of" + ὁδός/hodos "a method, system; a way or manner" of doing, saying, etc.), literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In re ...

, a technique for solving partial differential equations

Other uses

Light characteristic A light characteristic is all of the properties that make a particular somewhat navigational light identifiable. Graphical and textual descriptions of navigational light sequences and colours are displayed on nautical charts and in Light Lists ...

, pattern of a lighted beacon * Another name for ability score in ''Dungeons & Dragons''

Computing

Science

Mathematics

Other uses

See also