Word.ws English Dictionary

Rayleigh quotient

Rayleigh quotient noun: a formula used in the min-max theorem to find exact eigenvalues, and in eigenvalue algorithms to obtain an eigenvalue approximation from an eigenvector approximation; it has applications in quantum mechanics.

Noun

Rayleigh quotient (plural Rayleigh quotients)

  1. A formula used in the min-max theorem to find exact eigenvalues, and in eigenvalue algorithms to obtain an eigenvalue approximation from an eigenvector approximation; it has applications in quantum mechanics.

Forms of Rayleigh quotient

pluralRayleigh quotients

Origin of Rayleigh quotient

Named after Lord Rayleigh.

Questions about Rayleigh quotient

What does Rayleigh quotient mean?
Rayleigh quotient means a formula used in the min-max theorem to find exact eigenvalues, and in eigenvalue algorithms to obtain an eigenvalue approximation from an eigenvector approximation; it has applications in quantum mechanics.
What part of speech is Rayleigh quotient?
Rayleigh quotient is a noun.
What is the plural of Rayleigh quotient?
The plural of Rayleigh quotient is Rayleigh quotients.

Words near Rayleigh quotient in the dictionary

  1. rayle
  2. rayled
  3. rayleigh
  4. Rayleigh jet
  5. Rayleigh jets
  6. Rayleigh quotient
  7. Rayleigh quotients
  8. Rayleigh scattering
  9. Rayleigh scatterings
  10. Rayleigh wave
  11. Rayleigh waves

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Rayleigh quotient (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Rayleigh quotient.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rayleigh_quotient. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.