triangulations

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...
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...
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...

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