Secularity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Secularity or secularism are also used in the meaning of laïcité, a concept related to the separation of state and religion.
Secularity and secular are derived from the Latin word saeculum, an expression of time meaning one generation or century. Strictly speaking, a secular occurrence is thus something which happens approximately once every one hundred years. Such an occurrence would usually be seen as a long-term event, but when compared to the age of the universe, or to an infinite amount of time, secular may instead be used to describe something which occurs or repeats very briefly.
The term secular has taken on a variety of meanings over the years. It is mainly used to denote distance from, or lack of, religion; see Secularism.
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[edit] Secularity as relative worldliness
The Christian doctrine that God exists outside of time led medieval Western culture to use secular to indicate movement away from religious affairs and toward worldly (or time-related) ones. This has been extended to apply relative to all religious or spiritual beliefs, whether or not they include a similar doctrine.
Examples of secular used in religious contexts include:
- Secular authority, which involves legal and military authority as opposed to clerical authority, or matters the church controls.
- Secular clergy, who, traditionally, do not live the monastic lives of religious clergy.
- Secular sonatas, those in the 17th century which were not composed to be used in church services.
- Secular governments, which follow civil laws as opposed to religious instructions like the Islamic Shariah, Catholic Canon law, or Jewish Halakha, and which do not favor any particular religion.
[edit] Secular phenomena
In astronomy, secular phenomena (which repeat too slowly to be observed, if at all) are contrasted with phenomena observed to repeat periodically. In particular, astronomical ephemerides use secular to label long-term perturbations in the motion of planets, as opposed to periodic perturbations. (See month.)
[edit] Secular trend
In numerical descriptions, such as of a time series of numbers, a secular trend is the long-term upward or downward trend in the numbers, as opposed to a smaller cyclical variation with a periodic and short-term duration.
For example, in the business operating cycle, revenue might fluctuate during the fiscal year. Experienced management could ignore the cyclical fluctuation in revenue and concentrate instead on the larger trend from year to year, hoping to see a secular trend upward.
[edit] Secular basis
In the finance industry, something done on a secular basis is done on a long-term basis, not a temporary or cyclical one, with a time frame of "10-50 years or more".[1]
[edit] Secular equilibrium
In radioactive decay, secular equilibrium occurs when the daughter of a parent radionuclide has the same level of radioactivity as the parent. To reach secular equilibrium the parent must have a half-life much longer than the daughter. For example, Strontium-90 decays with a half-life of 28.6 years into Yttrium-90. Yttrium-90 has a half-life of 64.1 hours. The quantity of Yttrium will increase due to the decay of Strontium and decrease at a rate proportional to the quantity of Yttrium. After several half-lives of the daughter product the loss of Yttrium by self-decay will match the production of Yttrium by Strontium decay. At this point the two elements are in secular equilibrium.
