hidden quantity

Noun

hidden quantity (countable and uncountable, plural hidden quantities)

1. (Latin) The pronunciation (long or short) of a vowel that appears before two consonants.
   • The part which deals with Sounds, Inflection, and Word-Formation was written by the junior author, who is also mainly responsible for matters of orthography, hidden quantity, etc., throughout the book;1966, William Gardner Hale, Carl Darling Buck, A Latin Grammar, page iii
   • The reality of the "hidden quantity" in these participial forms is completely borne out by three independent testimonies: inscriptions with the long vowel marked by the apex ; the development of the relevant forms in the Romance languages; and the explicit discussion by Aulus Gellius Noct. att. 9.6.1970, G. P. Goold, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology - Volume 74, →ISBN, page 55
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hidden, quantity.
   • This is consistent with the fact that an observation requires a measurement and, therefore, between observations, the unobservable ψ evolves in an unobservable way (according to Schrödinger's equation). In connection with this important remark, Bell [142] could state that the fact that a so-called...2013, Gerard Gouesbet, Hidden Worlds in Quantum Physics, →ISBN, page 132
   • The knowledge of all that we have mentioned will be realized after we have completed the means to know the hidden quantity. Indeed, if we know its quantity, we shall know to which species the number belongs;2017, Jacques Sesiano, Magic Squares in the Tenth Century, →ISBN