Force (disambiguation)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Force has several meanings:

• Force, influence that causes mass to accelerate, such as gravity, friction, or a push. Force is defined by Newton's Second Law as F = m · a.
• Coercion, compelling a person to some involuntary action using actual or threatened harm.
• Actions or results mandated by the rules, in games, sports, and logic (such as a "forced bet" in poker or a "forcing bid" in contract bridge).

Force can also refer to:

In law:

• Force (law), usually defined as either unlawful violence (eg. a forced entry) or lawful compulsion (e.g. police impoundment).
• A law coming into force; when a regulation or statute takes effect and has the "force of law" behind it.

In mathematics and logic:

• Proof by exhaustion, also known as the "brute-force" method. A proof by exhaustion simply examines all possibilities.
• Forcing (mathematics), a modern proof-technique of set theory.
• A distinction between assertions and other statements, used by the logician Gottlob Frege.

In sports:

• Western Force, an Australian rugby union team in the Super 14.
• Force play, a situation in baseball where the runner must advance to the next base (or become a "force out").

In the military and the police:

• A military unit; any operational grouping of such units.
  • Task force, a term used initially by the Navy for a group with a specific mission, now in wide use.
• The police force, sometimes shortened to simply "The Force."
• The armed forces, all branches of a country's military.

Force can also mean:

• The Force (Star Wars), mystical energy in the Star Wars universe.
• A (card magic) trick wherein the spectator picks a seemingly random item ("Pick a card, pick any card"), but the process is rigged so that they receive a pre-selected item known to the performer.
• Forcing (agriculture), techniques in gardening and agriculture for growing plants out of season.
• Force (cereal), a brand of wheat flakes cereal first produced by the Force Food Company in 1901.
• GeForce and nForce, computer graphics chips made by NVIDIA.
• The original name of the band Europe (band).
• Fundamental interaction, mechanisms by which particles interact, sometimes called fundamental forces.
• Stuffing (archaic usage), usually used now only as in "forced meat" (or "forcemeat"), which is seasoned ground meat (derived from farce and meaning "to cut [up]").
• A waterfall (archaic usage), a usage in northern England. Force is in the names of some waterfalls, coming from the Old Norse fors or foss.
• Force, Italy, a town.

[edit] See also

• The Force (disambiguation)
• Energy (disambiguation)
• Brute force (disambiguation)
• Special forces (disambiguation)