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rigor

 
Dictionary: rig·or   (rĭg'ər) pronunciation
n.
  1. Strictness or severity, as in temperament, action, or judgment.
  2. A harsh or trying circumstance; hardship. See synonyms at difficulty.
  3. A harsh or cruel act.
  4. Medicine. Shivering or trembling, as caused by a chill.
  5. Physiology. A state of rigidity in living tissues or organs that prevents response to stimuli.
  6. Obsolete. Stiffness or rigidity.

[Middle English rigour, from Old French, from Latin rigor, from rigēre, to be stiff.]


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Thesaurus: rigor
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noun

  1. The fact or condition of being rigorous and unsparing: austerity, hardness, harshness, rigidity, rigorousness, severity, sternness, strictness, stringency, toughness. See easy/hard.
  2. Something that obstructs progress and requires great effort to overcome: asperity, difficulty, hardship, vicissitude (often used in plural). Idioms: ahardtoughnut to crack, ahardtoughrow to hoe, heavy sledding. See easy/hard.

Antonyms: rigor
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n

Definition: strictness, exactness
Antonyms: ease, elasticity, flexibility, laxness, leniency, pliability


A subjective sensation of feeling cold, accompanied by muscle tremor, characteristic of the increment stage of fever. Because of its subjectivity it is not a term that can be used in animal medicine.

  • r. complexes — formed when actin and myosin bond together strongly in the absence of ATP; occurs in rigor mortis.
  • r. mortis — the stiffening of a dead body accompanying depletion of adenosine triphosphate in the muscle fibers.
Word Tutor: rigor
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pronunciation

IN BRIEF: Inflexibility. Also: A condition that makes life difficult.

pronunciation Love melts the rigor which the rocks have bred; A flint will break upon a feather bed... — John Cleveland

Wikipedia: Rigour
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Rigour or rigor (see spelling differences) has a number of meanings in relation to intellectual life and discourse. These are separate from public and political applications with their suggestion of laws enforced to the letter, or political absolutism. A religion, too, may be worn lightly, or applied with rigour.

Contents

Intellectual rigour

An attempted short definition of intellectual rigour might be that no suspicion of double standard be allowed: uniform principles should be applied. This is a test of consistency, over cases, and to individuals or institutions (including the speaker, the speaker's country and so on). Consistency can be at odds here with a forgiving attitude, adaptability, and the need to take precedent with a pinch of salt.

"The rigour of the game" is a quotation from Charles Lamb[1] about whist. It implies that the demands of thinking accurately and to the point over a card game can serve also as entertainment or leisure. Intellectual rigour can therefore be sometimes seen as the exercise of a skill. It can also degenerate into pedantry, which is intellectual rigour applied to no particular end, except perhaps self-importance. Scholarship can be defined as intellectual rigour applied to the quality control of information, which implies an appropriate standard of accuracy, and scepticism applied to accepting anything on trust.

In relation to intellectual honesty

Intellectual rigour is an important part, though not the whole, of intellectual honesty — which means keeping one's convictions in proportion to one's valid evidence.[2] For the latter, one should be questioning one's own assumptions, not merely applying them relentlessly if precisely. It is possible to doubt whether complete intellectual honesty exists — on the grounds that no one can entirely master his or her own presuppositions — without doubting that certain kinds of intellectual rigour are potentially available. The distinction certainly matters greatly in debate, if one wishes to say that an argument is flawed in its premises.

Politics and the law

The setting for intellectual rigour does tend to assume a principled position from which to advance or argue. An opportunistic tendency to use any argument at hand is not very rigorous, although very common in politics, for example. Arguing one way one day, and another later, can be defended by casuistry, i.e. by saying the cases are different.

In the legal context, for practical purposes, the facts of cases do always differ. Case law can therefore be at odds with a principled approach; and intellectual rigour can seem to be defeated. This defines a judge's problem with uncodified law. Codified law poses a different problem, of interpretation and adaptation of definite principles without losing the point; here applying the letter of the law, with all due rigour, may on occasion seem to undermine the principled approach.

Mathematical rigour

Mathematical rigour can refer both to rigorous methods of mathematical proof and to rigorous methods of mathematical practice (thus relating to other interpretations of rigour).

In relation to mathematical proof

Mathematical rigour is often cited as a kind of gold standard for mathematical proof. It has a history traced back to Greek mathematics, where it is said to have been invented[citation needed]. Complete rigour, it is often said, became available in mathematics at the start of the twentieth century. This refers to the axiomatic method.

Mathematical rigour can be defined as amenability to algorithmic proof checking. Indeed, with the aid of computers, it is possible to check proofs mechanically by noting that possible flaws arise from either an incorrect proof or machine errors (which are extremely rare).[3] Formal rigour is the introduction of high degrees of completeness by means of a formal language where such proofs can be codified using set theories such as ZFC (see automated theorem proving).

Most mathematical arguments are presented as prototypes of formally rigorous proofs. The reason often cited for this is that completely rigorous proofs, which tend to be longer and more unwieldy, may obscure what is being demonstrated. Steps which are obvious to a human mind may have fairly long formal derivations from the axioms. Under this argument, there is a tradeoff between rigour and comprehension. Some argue that the utilisation of formal languages to institute complete mathematical rigour might make theories which are commonly disputed or misinterpreted completely unambiguous by revealing flaws in reasoning, such as a misuse of statistics.

In relation to physics

The role of mathematical rigour in relation to physics is twofold.

First, there is the general question, sometimes called Wigner's Puzzle,[4] "how it is that mathematics, quite generally, is applicable to nature?" However, scientists assume its successful application to nature justifies the study of mathematical physics.

Second, there is the question regarding the role and status of mathematically rigorous results and relations[clarification needed]. This question is particularly vexing in relation to quantum field theory.

Both aspects of mathematical rigour in physics have attracted considerable attention in philosophy of science. (See, for example, ref.[5] and works quoted therein.)

In relation to the classroom

Rigour in the classroom is a hotly debated topic amongst educators. Generally speaking, however, classroom rigour consists of multi-faceted, challenging instruction and correct placement of the student. Students excelling in formal operational thought tend to excel in classes for gifted students[citation needed]. Students who have not reached that final stage of cognitive development, according to Piaget, can build upon those skills with the help of a properly trained teacher.

See also

References

  1. ^ Bartlett, John, comp. Familiar Quotations, 10th ed, rev. and enl. by Nathan Haskell Dole. Boston: Little, Brown, 1919; Bartleby.com, 2000. http://www.bartleby.com/100/343.html. Retrieved Oct. 25, 2006.
  2. ^ Wiener, N. (1985). Intellectual honesty and the contemporary scientist. In P. Masani (Ed.), Norbert Wiener: Collected works and commentary (pp. 725- 729).
  3. ^ Hardware memory errors are caused by high-energy radiation from outer space, and can generally be expected to affect one bit of data per month, per gigabyte of DRAM.[1].
  4. ^ This refers to the 1960 paper The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences by Eugene Wigner.
  5. ^ Gelfert, Axel, 'Mathematical Rigor in Physics: Putting Exact Results in Their Place', Philosophy of Science, 72 (2005) 723-738.

Misspellings: rigor
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Common misspelling(s) of rigor

  • rigeur

Translations: Rigor
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Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - [med.] kulderystelse, stivhed, rigor

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    [med.] rigor mortis (dødsstivhed)

2.
n. - (amer. eng.) strenghed, stivhed, overdreven korrekthed

Nederlands (Dutch)
striktheid, onbuigzaamheid, stijfheid

Français (French)
1.
n. - (Méd) coup de froid (accompagné de fièvre et de sueurs abondantes)

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    rigidité cadavérique

2.
n. - (US) rigueur, rigueurs (npl)

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Strenge, Härte

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    Totenstarre

2.
n. - Strenge, Härte

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - άκρα αυστηρότητα, (υπερ)σχολαστικότητα, επιβολή σιδηράς πειθαρχίας, δυσκαμψία, (ιατρ.) ακαμψία, (πληθ.) δοκιμασίες, κακουχίες

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    νεκρική/πτωματική ακαμψία

Italiano (Italian)
rigore

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    rigor mortis

Português (Portuguese)
n. - rigor (m)

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    rigidez após o óbito

Русский (Russian)
оцепенение, окоченение, строгость, тщательность

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    трупное окоченение

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - rigor

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    rigidez cadavérica

2.
n. - rigor

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - frossbrytning

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
严格, 苛刻, 严厉, 艰苦

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    死后僵硬

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 嚴格, 苛刻, 嚴厲, 艱苦

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    死後僵硬

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 오한, 경직, 생장정지

2.
n. - 엄함, 엄숙, 혹독함

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 厳しさ, 過酷, 厳しい状況, 困苦, 厳密さ, 厳格, 苦しさ, 難儀, 悪寒

idioms:

  • rigor mortis    死後硬直

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) صرامه, قسوة, شدة, ضيق‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮קשיחות, חומרה, הקפדה, דייקנות, קפדנות, תנאים קשים‬
n. - ‮קשיחות, חומרה, הקפדה, דייקנות, קפדנות, תנאים קשים‬


 
 

 

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