Concept in Definition ABC

The noun dispersion refers to the effect that occurs when various elements separate from their origin or their nucleus and expand in space or time. Its antonym that best defines it could be concentration, which is that which is accumulated in a single place or time.

In relation to humans

The concept of dispersion in the human context presents three senses different. First, it refers to the dispersion of the population, a phenomenon that occurs when people live in large tracts of land very far from each other and not in a single community.

Sometimes dispersion is spoken of to refer to the abandonment of a territory for some reason (The diaspora of the Jewish people is a clear example in this regard).

Finally, dispersion is spoken of as a attitude personal or as a way of being and, in this sense, when someone does not focus on what he is doing, he is said to be a dispersed person. This way of being can be symptomatic and is what happens with attention deficit syndrome or ADHD and can be treated with medication or combined with some psychological treatment.

In any case, people with dispersed behavior can have problems when executing their actions or starting their personal projects.

In some specific cases, one can speak of the dispersal of the troops of an army or the dispersal of protesters.

Other uses of the concept

In the field of math This term is also used and with it the distance of any data with respect to the mean of those same data is determined. This use is very common in the terminology of the statistics and mathematical analysis.

In the language of physics there are three types of scattering:

1) particles moving in a certain direction,

2) in the terminology of optics to refer to the scattering of light in space that allows us to observe reality in one way or another and

3) acoustic dispersion, which is one that shows how sound waves spread through the air.

In biology it is used in two senses:

1) the dispersion in terms of the propagation of the seeds (which can be through the wind or the rain or through the pollination of bees) and

2) the dispersal of any animal population.

In chemistry dispersion occurs when some substances are displaced or diluted.

Photos: Fotolia - Honzakrej / Cmon

Issues in Dispersion