triangulation

Noun

triangulation (countable and uncountable, plural triangulations)

1. (uncountable) A technique in which distances and directions are estimated from an accurately measured baseline and the principles of trigonometry; (countable) an instance of the use of this technique.
   • The season of 1835–36 was employed in carrying on the triangulation; in which Colonel [George] Everest was much impeded by a long continuance of hazy and cloudy weather. It appears, however, that the principal triangulation was brought down to the line from Juktipura to Pagara; […]1839 June 14, T. B. Jervis, “IV. Some Account of the Progress of the Trigonometrical Survey Now Carrying On in India. Extracted from the Correspondence of Colonel Everest, and Communicated by Major...
   • Russia began under Catherine II, and has since constantly either taken up at different points or extended the triangulations successively made, with always more perfection of men of science. Now, these triangulations form a fully connected series from north of the arctic circle to south of Dorpat.1843 February 9, John B. Aycrigg, “Notes”, in Report of John B. Aycrigg, (Made to the House of Representatives on the 9th February, 1843,) Submitted as an Individual Member of the Committee on the...
2. (countable) The network of triangles so obtained, that are the basis of a chart or map.
   • […] I have placed myself in communication with the Astronomer Royal, for the purpose of considering the steps necessary to be taken to effect the connexion required, between the triangulation of Great Britain and that of Belgium. […] I have also placed myself in communication with General...1860 November 29, Henry James, “Appendix. [Official Correspondence, Letter C.]”, in Extension of the Triangulation of the Ordnance Survey into France and Belgium […], London: Printed by George Edward...
3. (countable) A delaying move in which the king moves in a triangular path to force the advance of a pawn.
   • [page 76] At this point, it may be useful to refer to a word that has been used in connection with earlier examples. The King has been said to indulge in a process called Triangulation. The word is harder than the idea. The basic fact is that the King can move to an adjacent square in one move, two...1961, Gerald Abrahams, “Kings and Ascending Pawns”, in Technique in Chess, London: G[eorge] Bell and Sons, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1973, →ISBN, pages 76 and 77
4. (countable) A subdivision of a planar object into triangles, and by extension the subdivision of a higher-dimension geometric object into simplices.
   • Regular triangulations are a class in-between lifting and lexicographic triangulations. Their main draw-back in the context of this paper is that regularity depends on the specific realization and not only on the oriented matroid.2002 March, Francisco Santos, “Triangulations of Oriented Matroids”, in Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society, volume 156, number 741, Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, →ISSN...
   • A triangulation of a point configuration #92;mathbf#123;A#125;#92;in#92;mathbb#123;R#125;ᵈ is a collection of d-simplices all of whose vertices are points in #92;mathbf#123;A#125; that satisfies the following two properties: 1. The union of all these simplices equals conv(#92;mathbf#123;A#125;)....2010, Jésus A[ntonio] De Loera, Jörg Rambau, Francisco Santos, “Triangulations in Mathematics”, in Triangulations: Structures for Algorithms and Applications (Algorithms and Computation in...
5. (uncountable, navigation) A process by which an unknown location is found using three known distances from known locations.
   • A special advantage of radar is that it works during darkness and other periods of low visibility, which prevent visual triangulation and aircraft techniques for measuring nuclear clouds.1958 November–December, “News Notes: Army Weather Radar Tracks Nuclear Clouds”, in William H. Zierdt Jr., editor, Armor: The Magazine of Mobile Warfare, volume LXVII, number 6, Washington, D.C....
6. (uncountable) The practice of repositioning one's group or oneself on the political spectrum in an attempt to capture the centre.
   • Triangulation was a presidential leadership strategy that presented the president as having borrowed elements of both the right and the left to develop some form of center policy amalgam.2004, Stanley A[llen] Renshon, “The Politics of Transformation”, in In His Father’s Shadow: The Transformations of George W. Bush, New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN; paperback edition, New...
   • Increased security for women's health clinics was part of [Bill] Clinton's "third way," a politics of triangulation that moved the Democratic Party closer to the right and embraced neoliberal economic policies while offering comparatively moderate social positions.2015, Tamar W. Carroll, “It Saved My Life: Creating Queer Politics”, in Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, →ISBN...
7. (uncountable, qualitative research) The use of three (or more) researchers to interview the same people or to evaluate the same evidence to reduce the impact of individual bias.
   • One recent attempt to combine both forms of data collection […] was based on a parallel methods approach, in which the results of two similar but separately located studies were triangulated. Triangulation entails overlapping the results at several points to enhance reliability. […] Other...1999, Carol Grbich, “Qualitative Research: An Introduction”, in Qualitative Research in Health: An Introduction, Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, →ISBN, part 1 (Theory and Design), pages 17–18
   • Even though triangulation is used in quantitative paradigm for confirmation and generalization of a research, Barbour (1998) does not disregard the notion of triangulation in qualitative paradigm and she states the need to define triangulation from a qualitative research's perspective in each...2003 December 1, Nahid Golafshani, “Understanding Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research”, in The Qualitative Report, volume 8, number 4, page 603