Timeline for Term for minimum or maximum
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 16, 2013 at 15:19 | comment | added | Mitch | @tchrist: I don't know! In technical circles (math, engineering '-al' means you can't do any better in the narrow circumstances but there may be a better one under another situation, and '-um' means best over all situations. In non-technical speech, I don't feel any difference. | |
| Aug 16, 2013 at 2:01 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | What's the difference between the optimum score and the optimal score? | |
| Jul 20, 2011 at 1:50 | comment | added | row1 | @Mitch correct, they can only chose one option and not both. | |
| Jul 20, 2011 at 0:51 | comment | added | Mitch | I read the OP saying "either minimum or maximum" as one or the other, only one at a time (as in my two examples). If the OP is asking for -both- at the same time, then extrema is correct. | |
| Jul 20, 2011 at 0:18 | comment | added | Peter Shor | The optimum in darts is 180, and not 0. The two extrema in darts are 0 and 180. As @rest_day says, it doesn't mean the same thing. | |
| Jul 20, 2011 at 0:03 | comment | added | rest_day | I do not follow golf, so I did not know that in golf the player with lowest point wins. But what I meant in my comment was that optimum cannot be used to denote both maximum and minimum at the same time, as the OP asked. | |
| Jul 19, 2011 at 23:44 | comment | added | Mitch | @rest_day: ok but then what is the optimum score in golf? | |
| Jul 19, 2011 at 22:31 | comment | added | rest_day | I believe optimum means the best possible. Even in your example, I don't think it denotes the minimum value. | |
| Jul 19, 2011 at 20:57 | history | answered | Mitch | CC BY-SA 3.0 |