Critical
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Critical may denote:
More specifically:
[edit] Philosophy
- critical theory - concepts in social theory and in literary criticism
[edit] Psychology and education
- critical pedagogy - helping students achieve critical consciousness
- critical psychology - critiquing mainstream psychology, often looking towards social change as a means of preventing and treating psychopathology
- critical thinking - mental processes of discernment, analysis and evaluation
[edit] Biology and medicine
- critical care - intensive care medicine
- critical condition - grade of severity of a medical condition
- critical period - a time in the early stages of an organism's life during which it displays a heightened sensitivity to certain environmental stimuli, and develops in particular ways due to experiences at this time
[edit] Mathematics
- critical graph - graph with minimal chromatic number
- critical group - a group not in the variety generated by all its proper subquotients
- critical line - of zeros of the Riemann zeta function
- critical pair - concepts in mathematical logic, and in order theory
- critical point (mathematics) - point on a function where the derivative vanishes
- critical point (set theory) - of an elementary embedding of a transitive class into another transitive class: the smallest ordinal which is not mapped to itself
[edit] Physics
- critical angle - the angle of incidence above which total internal reflection occurs.
- critical distance - in audio physics, the distance at which the sound pressure level of the direct and the reverberant sound fields are equal when dealing with a directional source.
- critical mass - the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction.
- critical point (thermodynamics) - conditions (temperature, pressure) at which the liquid state of matter ceases to exist
- critical phenomena - associated with critical points
- critical speed - the theoretical angular velocity which excites the natural frequency of a screw or gear.
[edit] Process control
- Critical Control Point - a point, step or procedure at which controls can be applied and a food safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated or reduced to acceptable (critical) levels
- critical hours - from sunrise to two hours after sunrise, and from two hours before sunset until sunset, local time
- critical path method - project management algorithm
- Critical Security Parameter - information that is either user or system defined and is used to operate a cryptography module in processing encryption functions
- Critical Success Factor - an element which is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission.
[edit] Aviation
- critical angle of attack - such that the airflow has separated from a substantial portion of the upper surface of the airfoil
- critical area - designated area of an airport that all aircraft must remain clear of when another aircraft is inbound on an ILS approach
- critical engine - the one whose failure would result in the most adverse effects on the aircraft's handling and performance
- critical mach - the speed at which some of the airflow on a wing becomes supersonic.
[edit] Other
- Critical (novel) - a medical thriller written by Dr. Robin Cook
- critical focus - the portion of a photograph that is optically in focus
- critical hit - in role-playing games, a successful attack that deals more damage than a normal hit
- critical load - of a pollutant, minimum exposure threshold for known harmful effects
- critical section - piece of code requiring single-thread to a shared device
- Critical Software - company specializing in mission and business critical information systems.
- Critical Software Technologies, UK subsidiary