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What is the Inverse of Density Called?

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mimus99

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Jan 7, 2017, 12:05:41 PM1/7/17
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This may be a senior-moment, but I can't think of the name for the inverse
of density, that is, for volume per unit weight or mass.

The only thing I can find on the Web is the two-word "specific volume",
which is kind of kludgy, tied less to relationship than to material, and
suggests constancy (not true for example in the case of water, depending on
temperature).

The word comes to us pretty much unchanged via Latin from proto- Indo-
European.

"Frequency" is suggested as a synonym for "density", but the inverse of
temporal frequency is period, and, again, I'm not sure what the word would
be for the inverse of spatial frequency-- "neighborhood"?

--
Surely Archimedes or somebody had a word for it.

mimus99

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Jan 9, 2017, 6:12:32 PM1/9/17
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OK, I vote for "sparsity".

This overloads the word, since it also applies to (low) degree of density,
but it intuitively fits, sparsity in our new sense growing with volume.

This word also comes to us via the Latin from proto- Indo- Eurpean, but got
a little more battered in the process, from "(s)preg-" to "spargere" to
"sparse".

Honk up the Working Group.

--
Whatever happened to plain Indo-European?

mimus99

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Jan 9, 2017, 6:27:22 PM1/9/17
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On Sun, 08 Jan 2017 13:26:32 GMT, St. Nope wrote:

> On Sat, 07 Jan 2017 12:05:40 -0500, mimus99 wrote:
>
>> This may be a senior-moment,
>
> http://bfy.tw/9Lad

Yes yes, if you bothered to read the rest of the post you'd notice I
already DuckDuckGoed it.

--
Cretonnes.

Contrarian

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Feb 9, 2017, 3:00:09 AM2/9/17
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mimus99 <mim...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This may be a senior-moment, but I can't think of the name for the inverse
> of density, that is, for volume per unit weight or mass.


senior what? senior year?


> The only thing I can find on the Web is the two-word "specific volume",
> which is kind of kludgy, tied less to relationship than to material, and
> suggests constancy (not true for example in the case of water, depending on
> temperature).


I don't know the term if I ever knew it.

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