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Conundrum vs Quantum - What's the difference?

conundrum | quantum |

As nouns the difference between conundrum and quantum

is that conundrum is a difficult question or riddle, especially one using a play on words in the answer while quantum is .

conundrum

English

Noun

(en-noun)
  • A difficult question or riddle, especially one using a play on words in the answer.
  • * 1816 ,
  • “Why should I understand that, or anything else?” asked the girl. “Don’t bother my head by asking conundrums , I beg of you. Just let me discover myself in my own way.”
  • A difficult choice or decision that must be made.
  • * 2004 , , statement read before being sentenced to five months in prison
  • And while I am more concerned about the well-being of others than for myself, more hurt for them and for their losses than for my own, more worried for their futures than for the future of Martha Stewart the person, you are faced with a conundrum , a problem of monumental, to me, proportions.

    Synonyms

    * (difficult question) brain-teaser, enigma, puzzle, riddle * (difficult choice) dilemma

    quantum

    Noun

    (quanta)
  • * Burke
  • without authenticating the quantum of the charges
  • * 1749 , (Henry Fielding), Tom Jones , Folio Society 1973, p. 416:
  • The reader will perhaps be curious to know the quantum of this present, but we cannot satisfy his curiosity.
  • *1997 , (Kiran Nagarkar), Cuckold , HarperCollins 2013, p. 375:
  • *:Otherwise I will have given the lie to my maxim that whether you work eight or twenty hours, the quantum of work that gets done on a normal day is the same.
  • * 2008 , The Times of India , 21 May 2008, [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/India_Business/Fuel_price_hike_put_off_over_quantum/articleshow/3087364.cms]:
  • The Congress's core ministerial panel on Friday gave its green signal to raising motor fuel prices but the quantum of increase emerged as a hitch.
  • The amount or quantity observably present, or available.
  • *1979 , , Smiley's People , Folio Society 2010, p. 96:
  • *:Each man has only a quantum of compassion, he argued, and mine is used up for the day.
  • * 1999 , Joyce Crick, translating Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams , Oxford 2008, p. 34:
  • The dream of flying, according to Strümpell, is the appropriate image used by the psyche to interpret the quantum of stimulus proceeding from the rise and fall of the lungs when the cutaneous sensation of the thorax has simultaneously sunk into unconsciousness.
  • (physics) The smallest possible, and therefore indivisible, unit of a given quantity or quantifiable phenomenon.
  • * 2002 , David C Cassidy et al., Understanding Physics , Birkhauser 2002, p. 602:
  • The quantum of light energy was later called a photon .
  • (math) A definite portion of a manifoldness, limited by a mark or by a boundary.
  • (William Kingdon Clifford)

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Of a change, sudden or discrete, without intermediate stages.
  • (informal) Of a change, significant.
  • (physics) Involving quanta.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Michael Riordan , title=Tackling Infinity , volume=100, issue=1, page=86 , magazine= citation , passage=Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physical theories, including quantum' electrodynamics and ' quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied far more effort than was spent in originating the theories.}}
  • (computing theory) Relating to a quantum computer.
  • Derived terms

    * quantum algorithm * quantum bit * quantum bogodynamics * quantum brain dynamics * quantum calculus * quantum cascade laser * quantum channel * quantum chaos * quantum chemistry * quantum chromodynamics * quantum circuit * quantum computer * quantum computing * quantum cryptography * quantum darwinism * quantum decoherence * quantum degeneracy * quantum dense coding * quantum dot * quantum effect device * quantum efficiency * quantum electrochemistry * quantum electrodynamics * quantum electronics * quantum entanglement * quantum field theory * quantum fingerprinting * quantum flavordynamics * quantum fluctuation * quantum gate * quantum gauge theory * quantum geometry * quantum gravity * quantum group * quantum gyroscope * quantum Hall effect * quantum harmonic oscillator * quantum heterostructure * quantum history * quantum hydrodynamics * quantum immortality * quantum indeterminacy * quantum inequality * quantum information * quantum jump * quantum leap * quantum level * quantum libet * quantum limit * quantum link * quantum mechanics * quantum network * quantum neural network * quantum number * quantum ontology * quantum operation * quantum optics * quantum phase transition * quantum physics * quantum programming * quantum psychology * quantum randomness * quantum register * quantum scalar field * quantum solvent * quantum sort * quantum state * quantum statistical mechanics * quantum suicide * quantum superposition * quantum teleportation * quantum theory * quantum tomography * quantum valebant * quantum vibration * quantum virtual machine * quantum waveform generator * quantum well * quantum wire * quantum yield * quantum Zeno effect