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Involution vs Revolution - What's the difference?

involution | revolution |

As nouns the difference between involution and revolution

is that involution is entanglement; a spiralling inwards; intricacy while revolution is a political upheaval in a government or nation state characterized by great change.

involution

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • entanglement; a spiralling inwards; intricacy
  • :* 1968': ‘Gomez,’ said the mortician, ‘is an expert only on the '''involutions of his own rectum.’ — Anthony Burgess, ''Enderby Outside
  • (mathematics) An endofunction whose square is equal to the identity function; a function equal to its inverse.
  • * 1996 , Alfred J. Menezes et al, Handbook of Applied Cryptography , CRC Press, page 10:
    • Involutions have the property that they are their own inverses.
  • (physiology) The regressive changes in the body occurring with old age.
  • (mathematics, obsolete) A power: the result of raising one number to the power of another.

    • Derived terms

    * involutional * involutionary

    See also

    * dual * selfdual

    revolution

    English

    (wikipedia revolution)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A political upheaval in a government or nation state characterized by great change.
  • The removal and replacement of a government.
  • Rotation: the turning of an object around an axis.
  • * 1912 , P. M. Heldt, The Gasoline Automobile: Its Design and Construction, Volume II: Transmission, Running Gear and Control , The Horseless Age Co. (1913), page 147:
    • The ratio between the speeds of revolution of wheel and disc is substantially equal to the reciprocal of the ratio between the diameter of the wheel and the diameter of the mean contact circle on the disc.
  • A rotation: one complete turn of an object during rotation.
  • * 1864 , D. M. Warren, The Common-School Geography , Revised Edition, H. Cowperthwait & Co., page 6:
    • The Earth has two motions: a daily revolution (or turning around) upon its axis , and a yearly course around the sun.
  • * 1878 , George Fleming, A Text-Book of Veterinary Obstetrics , Baillière, Tindall, & Cox, page 123:
    • Numerous cases are recorded which incontestibly prove that during pregnancy, the uterus perform a half or even a complete revolution , on itself, producing torsion of the cervix
  • In the case of celestial bodies - the traversal of one body through an orbit around another body.
  • A sudden, vast change in a situation, a discipline, or the way of thinking and behaving.

    • Usage notes

    * Astronomers today do not use (term) to refer to the turning of an object about an axis: they use (rotation) for that, and (term) only for the traversal of a body through an orbit (which also happens around some axis). (This may be somewhat customary, however, strictly speaking, using either word for either process would not be incorrect.)

    Antonyms

    * evolution

    Derived terms

    * revolutionary * revolutionize Compounds * agricultural revolution * artistic revolution * French Revolution * Industrial Revolution * solid of revolution * information revolution

    Related terms

    * revolve