BIOGRAPHIES [ JOHN CAGE ]

Tuesday 25 November 2008

flux |fləks|


noun
1 the action or process of flowing or flowing out : the flux of men and women moving back and forth | a localized flux of calcium into the cell.
• Medicine an abnormal discharge of blood or other matter from or within the body.
• (usu. the flux) archaic diarrhea or dysentery.
2 continuous change : the whole political system is in a state of flux.
3 Physics the rate of flow of a fluid, radiant energy, or particles across a given area.
• the amount of radiation or number of particles incident on an area in a given time.
• the total electric or magnetic field passing through a surface.
4 a substance mixed with a solid to lower its melting point, used esp. in soldering and brazing metals or to promote vitrification in glass or ceramics.
• a substance added to a furnace during metal smelting or glassmaking that combines with impurities to form slag.
verb [ trans. ]
treat (a metal object) with a flux to promote melting.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin fluxus, from fluere ‘to flow.’

flux
noun
the flux of vapor in the tube continuous change, changeability, variability, inconstancy, fluidity, instability, unsteadiness, fluctuation, variation, shift, movement, oscillation, alternation, rise and fall, seesawing, yo-yoing. antonym stability.