Glossary - U

universality
universality class
The hypothesis that the behaviour of a system near a continous phase transition is determined by the dimensionality of the system and the symmetry of the order parameter. For example the 3 dimensional Ising model has the same critical exponents irrespective of the underlying lattice structure. Other 3 dimensional systems with the same values of critical exponents are said to belong to the same universality class.


These glossary pages are part of the Membranes section of the SimScience project.