Encyclopedia

Disco Guns "Disco Gun" is a term devised by online communities for an unusual editing technique used for the American broadcast of the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED in which distracting neon lights are painted on firearms to make them appear to be unrealistic weapons. The first one, held by Andrew Waltfeld, appeared in episode 19 to much surprise from fans.
Disco Inferno (The Trammps song) "Disco Inferno" is a single by The Trammps from the album of the same name. It was also notably covered by Cyndi Lauper on the A Night at the Roxbury soundtrack and also by Tina Turner in 1993 on the What's Love Got To Do With It?
Disco Infiltrator "Disco Infiltrator" is a song from the debut album by LCD Soundsystem, released as their sixth single on June 6, 2005. The single includes a cover of the Siouxsie and the Banshees's track "Slowdive", which was on their 1982 album A Kiss in the Dreamhouse.
Disco Kandi Disco Kandi is the first compilation album in the Disco Kandi Series and features various artists performing modern disco tracks. It is the fifth series released by Hed Kandi, following the release of the Nu Cool, Serve Chilled, Winter Chill and Back To Love albums.
Disco mix A disco mix is the re-recording of a song, whose structure was predicated on exciting listeners and dancers by employing various iterations of the song's verses, bridges, and refrains through breaks and orchestral builds.
Disco Machine Michael Mondragon, better known as Disco Machine is an American professional wrestler from Southern California. Disco Machine is one of the six owners of SoCal promotion Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, collectively known as the "PWG Six".
Disco Mix Club Disco Mixing Club (DMC) is a worldwide name to all professional and amateur disc jockeys, especially those involved in the avant-garde music genre known as turntablism. What began in 1986, and continues as a per annum championship to this present day, has solidified into the most popular, and perhaps coveted, goal for DJs who are readily familiar with DJ competitions.
Disco polo Disco polo is a musical genre unique and native to Poland, which in its present form exists since the early 1990s. It was derived from contemporary folk tunes (mostly somewhat vulgarised ones played at weddings and feasts) and italo disco.
Discobolus The Discobolus of Myron ("discus thrower" Greek Δισκοβόλος του Μύρωνα) is a famous Roman marble copy of a lost Greek bronze original, completed during the zenith of the classical period between 460-450 BC. Myron's Discobolus was long known from descriptions:
Discodermolide (+)-Discodermolide is a recently discovered polyketide natural product found to be a potent inhibitor of tumor cell growth. The molecule's carbon skeleton is made up of eight polypropionate and four acetate units with 13 stereocenters.
Discofox Discofox or Disco Fox is a social partner dance evolved in Europe in mid-seventies as a rediscovery of the dance hold in the improvisational disco dance scene dominated by solo dancing, approximately at the same time when hustle emerged in the United States. Both dances were greatly influenced by the Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta.
Discogs Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about music recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and certain bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.
Discommendation In the fictional Star Trek universe, Discommendation (in Klingon, naDHa'ghach) is a declaration by the Klingon High Council that an individual Klingon and his family are dishonored. Those who have been discommended are considered pariahs and traitors.
Discomycetes Discomycetes is a former taxonomic class of Ascomycete fungi which contains all of the cup, sponge, brain, and club-like fungi such as the truffle and swamp beacon, but the new taxonomic and molecular data have failed to support their affinity.
Disconfirmation bias Disconfirmation bias refers to the tendency for people to extend critical scrutiny to information which contradicts their prior beliefs and uncritically accept information that is congruent with their prior beliefs.
Disconnect (Prison Break episode) "Disconnect" is the thirty-fourth episode of the American television series Prison Break and is the twelfth episode of its second season. Aired on November 20, 2006, it was also one of the episodes that were aired during the 2006 November sweeps in the United States.
Disconnect supervision Disconnect Supervision is a term in telephony, describing a situation whereby the called party indicates to the central office that the call is being disconnected by the called party. by allowing loop current to flow in the line.
Disconnected (Fates Warning album) Disconnected is the ninth album by the progressive metal group Fates Warning, released in 2000 (see 2000 in music). Kevin Moore previously played on the Fates Warning album A Pleasant Shade of Gray and in OSI with Matheos.
Disconnection Disconnection is a practice in Scientology, in which a Scientologist severs all ties between themselves and friends, colleagues, or family members that are deemed to be antagonistic towards Scientology. Gormez, Michael Scientology disconnect policy destroying families (accessed 4/19/06) Snoeck, Michel Scientology: The ‘Practice of Disconnection’ - A detailed study (accessed 4/29/06) The practice of disconnection is a form of religious shunning.
Discontinuity (Postmodernism) For Michel Foucault (1926-84), discontinuity and continuity reflect the flow of history and the fact that some, "things are no longer perceived, described, expressed, characterised, classified, and known in the same way" from one era to the next. (1994).
Discontinuous linear map In mathematics, linear maps form an important class of "simple" functions which preserve the algebraic structure of linear spaces and are often used as approximations to more general functions (see linear approximation). If the spaces involved are also topological spaces (that is, topological vector spaces), then it makes sense to ask whether all linear maps are continuous.
Discontinuous Transmission Discontinuous transmission (DTX) is a method of momentarily powering-down, or muting, a mobile or portable wireless telephone set when there is no voice input to the set. This optimizes the overall efficiency of a wireless voice communications system.
Discophoros The Discophoros, also spelled Discophorus, meaning "Discus-Bearer" is one of the figure's in according to the Classical Greek sculptor Polyclitus. It's so known like the so called Doryphoros and Diadumenos.
Discoplax hirtipes Discoplax hirtipes is a terrestrial crab native to the Southwest Japanese Islands, Taiwan, Micronesia, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, the South Pacific Ocean, Australia and the Indian Ocean. They have a purplish carapace with pink pincers and legs.
Discordian calendar The Discordian or Erisian calendar is an alternative calendar used by some adherents of Discordianism. It is specified on page 00034 of the Principia Discordia (although additional holidays or "holydays" are listed in other Discordian works, especially in Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht).
Discordian Works The most famous Discordian works are probably Principia Discordia, first published in 1965 (which includes portions of The Honest Book of Truth); and The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which had its first volume published in 1975.
Discothèque A discothèque (or discoteque), is an entertainment venue or club with recorded music, played by "Discaires" (Disk jockeys), rather than an on-stage band. The word derives from the French word discothèque (a type of nightclub).
Discount In finance (studies and addresses the ways in which individuals, businesses and organizations raise, allocate and use monetary resources over time, taking into account the risks entailed in their projects) and economics, discounting is the process of finding the present value of an amount of cash at some future date, and along with compounding cash forms the basis of time value of money calculations. The discounted value of a cash flow is determined by reducing its value by the appropriate discount rate for each unit of time between the time when the cashflow is to be valued to the time of the cash flow.
Discount function A discount function is used in economic models to describe the weights placed on rewards received at different points in time. For example, if time is discrete and utility is time-separable, with the discount function
Discounted cash flow In finance, the discounted cash flow (or DCF) approach describes a method to value a project or an entire company using the concepts of the time value of money. The DCF methods determine the present value of future cash flows by discounting them using the appropriate cost of capital.
Discounted utility Discounted utility is an economics term in which economists, accountants, underwriters, and other financial analysts include the future discounted value of a good into its present value. This can be thought of as valuing goods with low depreciation more than disposable goods.
Discounts and allowances Discounts and allowances are reductions to a basic price. They could modify either the manufacturer's list price (determined by the manufacturer and often printed on the package), the retail price (set by the retailer and often attached to the product with a sticker), or the list price (which is quoted to a potential buyer, usually in written form).
Discourse Discourse is a term used in semantics as in discourse analysis, but it also refers to a social conception of discourse, often linked with the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and JĂĽrgen Habermas' The Theory of Communicative Action (1985). Each thinker had personal conceptions of discourse which are thought to be incompatible with the other.
Discourse community The term discourse community links the terms discourse, a concept describing all forms of communication that contribute to a particular, institutionalized way of thinking; and community, which in this case refers to the people who use, and therefore help create, a particular discourse.
Discourse on holiness The discourse on holiness forms the concluding part of the Sermon on the Mount, following immediately from the discourse on judgementalism. Like many other parts of the Sermon, it consists of a series of sayings followed by a brief explanation, and many of the sayings appear also in the Gospel of Luke.
Discourse on Inequality Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, written for the Académie de Dijon in 1754, is an attempt to answer the question "What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by natural law?" Rousseau had won a previous competition with his 1st Discourse and was not to be so lucky with the 2nd, but this work on inequality remains a fascinating study into differences among men.
Discourse on judgementalism The discourse on judgmentalism, , follows the discourse on ostentation in the sermon on the mount. The discourse is fairly brief, and begins by condemning those who would judge others, arguing that they too would be judged.
Discourse on Metaphysics The Discourse on Metaphysics (Discours de métaphysique, 1686) is a short (60 pages in translation) book by Gottfried Leibniz in which he develops a philosophy concerning physical substance, motion and resistance of bodies, and God's role within the universe. It is divided into 37 chapters.
Discourse on ostentation The discourse on ostentation, , is a section of the Sermon on the Mount, occurring after the antithesis of the Law, but before the discourse on judgementalism, according to the Gospel of Matthew. The discourse condemns ostentatious behaviour, particularly in religious matters, as well as arguing in support of asceticism.
Discourse on the Arts and Sciences "A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences" (1750), more commonly known as "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences" (French: Discours sur les sciences et les arts), was an essay by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau which argued that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality. It was Rousseau's first successful published work, and it was the first expression of his influential views about nature vs.
Discourse on the Method The Discourse on the Method is a philosophical and mathematical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. Its full name is Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason in the Search for Truth in the Sciences (French title: Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la verité dans les sciences).
Discourse particle In linguistics, a discourse particle is a lexeme or particle which has no semantic meaning in the context of a sentence, having rather a pragmatic function: it serves to indicate the speaker's attitude, or to structure their relationship to other participants in a conversation. Discourse particles are primarily a feature of spoken language; in written language they indicate an informal or jocular tone.
Discourse representation theory Discourse representation theory (DRT) is an extension of first-order predicate calculus that was created by Hans Kamp in 1981 in order to examine the contextually dependent meaning of a discourse. In traditional natural language semantics, only individual sentences are examined, but the context of a dialogue plays a role in meaning as well.
Discourse Unit The Discourse Unit is an international research group that currently has its main base at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom. It has been one of the most important focal points for the development of critical work in psychology and in other social sciences concerned with questions of subjectivity and politics.
Discourses on Livy The Discourses on Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy) is a work of political history and philosophy composed in the early 16th century by the famed Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), best known as the author of The Prince. Where The Prince is devoted to advising the ruler of a principality, i.
Discover Card Discover Card is one of the four major credit card brands issued primarily in the United States, with over 50 million cardholders. The Discover Card was originally introduced by Sears in 1985, and is today operated through a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley.
Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself Discover Intensive Phonics for Yourself is an approach to reading instruction using phonetics. It teaches a foundation for reading, spelling, and vocabulary development through a systematic, intensive phonics approach in which students are taught 42 sounds of the alphabet, 5 phonetic skills, and a 2-step skill for decoding multi-syllable words.
Discovered attack In chess, a discovered attack is an attack revealed when one piece moves out of the way of another. The discovered check is a special case of this, where the unmasked attack is a check (conceivably, the piece moving away can also give check; in that case a double check results).
Discoverer's Day Discoverer's Day is a commemorative public holiday of the state of Hawaii in the United States, observed on the second Monday of each October. It is celebrated on the same day as Columbus Day, a federal holiday which Hawaii does not officially honor, as Christopher Columbus had no part in the history of Hawaii.
Discoveries of the chemical elements The discovery of the elements known to exist today is presented here in chronological order. The elements are listed generally in the order in which each was first defined as the pure element, as the exact date of discovery of most elements cannot be accurately defined.
Discovery (law) In law, discovery is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party through the law of civil procedure can request documents and other evidence from other parties or can compel the production of evidence by using a subpoena or through other discovery devices, such as requests for production and depositions.
Discovery (Magazine) Discovery Magazine is the inflight magazine available for free to all passengers on Cathay Pacific flights. It is published monthly and can be found in the seatback pockets of every seat on Cathay Pacific aircraft.
Discovery (Shanice album) Discovery was Shanice Wilson's first album. It was released 1987 when she was only fourteen years old, and features the singles "(Baby Tell Me) Can You Dance," "No 1/2 Steppin'", "The Way You Love Me," and "I'll Bet She's Got A Boyfriend.
Discovery Atlas Discovery Atlas is a documentary television series on the Discovery Channel and Discovery HD Theater which focuses on the cultural, sociological, and natural aspects of various countries by exploring their different peoples, traditions, and lands. The documentary follows the lives and individual struggles of locals, while taking in-depth looks at the countries' history and culture.
Discovery Civilisation Discovery Civilisation is a British TV channel devoted to documentaries regarding history and civilisations. In the United States the channel that was formerly the Discovery Civilization Channel has been replaced by the Discovery Times Channel.
Discovery Cove Discovery Cove is an Orlando, Florida theme park where guests can interact with a variety of marine animals, most notably bottlenose dolphins. The park, which is operated by the Busch Entertainment Corporation (the theme park division of Anheuser-Busch) is adjacent to SeaWorld Orlando.
Discovery Girls Discovery Girls magazine is an American Preteen magazine for girls ages 8 and up. Although the magazine features girls only ages 8 to 12; 13, 14 and 15-year-olds can also contribute to all of the magazines' features.
Discovery Handicap The Discovery Handicap is a Grade III dirt race for Thoroughbred horses open to three-year-olds of either gender run in the fall at Aqueduct Race Track. Set at a distance of One and one eighth miles, it offers a purse of $100,000.
Discovery Home & Health Discovery Home & Health is a television channel broadcast in the UK. Launched as part of the Discovery Channels boquet of channels, as Discovery Health, following a similar format to the American channel of the same name.
Discovery Channel Telescope The Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) is a 4.2-meter telescope being built for Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona and will be the fifth largest telescope in the continental United States once completed in 2009.
Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge The Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge (DCYSC) is an annual science and engineering research and exhibit competition for students in grade 5 through 8 and was created in 1999. It is sponsored primarily by Discovery Communications, Science Service, and Elmer's Glue.
Discovery Institute The Discovery Institute is a think tank structured as a non-profit foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. The stated mission of the organization is to, "make a positive vision of the future practical.
Discovery Island Discovery Island, also known as "Bay Lake's Tropical Island Paradise," is an 11½-acre island in Bay Lake at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. It opened as "Treasure Island" on April 8, 1974, and was a place to observe wildlife.
Discovery Kids (UK) Discovery Kids is a British children's channel in the UK. The channel initially began broadcasting exclusively on the On Digital service time sharing with Discovery Wings; the channel eventually became available on other digital platforms such as Sky Digital.
Discovery Mine The Discovery Mine was a gold mine 81 kilometers northeast (approx bearing of 15 degrees) of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories that operated between 1950 and 1969. Gold was discovered here by Alfred Giauque in 1944.
Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation This article concerns the accidental discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation. Although predicted by earlier theories, it was first found accidentally by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson as they experimented with the Horn Antenna.
Discovery of penicillin Alexander Fleming was the first to suggest that the Penicillium mould must have an antibacterial substance, and the first to isolate the active substance which he named penicillin, but he was not the first to use its properties.
Discovery Park (Hong Kong) Discovery Park () is a residential development in Hong Kong, located at 398 Castle Peak Road, Tsuen Wan in the New Territories. The whole estate including the residential flats and the shopping centre spans over 2,700,000 square feet.
Discovery Science Discovery Science (also known as Discovery-Based Science) is a scientific methodology which emphasizes analysis of large volumes of experimental data with the goal of finding new patterns or correlations, leading to hypothesis formation and other scientific methodologies.
Discovery Ski Area Discovery Ski Area is a downhill ski area near the old mining town of Annaconda, Montana, off Highway 1 and is situated along the scenic Pintler Loop opisite of Georgetown Lake. Situated on Ramsey Mountain and Jubilee, the area consists of 4 different faces and provides for beginner groomed runs to expert bowl skiing.
Discovery Wings Discovery Wings is a British TV channel devoted to documentaries regarding aircraft. In the United States it has been replaced by the Military Channel, which still has a large portion of its programming dedicated to military aviation.
Discovery Wizard for SharePoint Quest Discovery Wizard for SharePoint lets users take inventory and report on the scope and state of their Microsoft SharePoint deployment. The product automatically identifies all the SharePoint servers and sites.
Discovery Zone Discovery Zone (or DZ for short) was a chain of entertainment facilities featuring games and elaborate indoor mazes designed for young children, including slides, climbing play structures and ball pits. The chain was founded by Ronald Matsch, Jim Jorgensen and Dr.
Discrediting tactic The expression discrediting tactics in politics refers to personal attacks against a public figure intended to discourage people from believing in the figure or supporting their cause (see damaging quotations).
Discreet Cat Discreet Cat is a thoroughbred race horse. As a foal of 2003 (May 1st), the bay colt was a possible contender for the Triple Crown in 2006, but he did not race in the Kentucky Derby or any other Triple Crown races.
Discrepancies between Dune novels The collective Dune universe, as described by its creator Frank Herbert and in works authorized by Herbert or his heirs, is comprised of the six original novels by Frank Herbert, the prequel novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and the two novels completing the original series, also written by Brian Herbert and Anderson.
Discrepancy theory Discrepancy theory can be described as the study of inevitable irregularities of distributions, in measure-theoretic and combinatorial settings. Just as Ramsey theory elucidates the impossibility of total disorder, discrepancy theory studies the deviations from total uniformity.
Discrete computer A discrete computer is a computer made up of discrete processing elements as opposed to a continuous computer which operates on real numbers. Any discrete computer can be adequately thought of as working on integer values.
Discrete cosine transform A discrete cosine transform (DCT) is a Fourier-related transform similar to the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), but using only real numbers. DCTs are equivalent to DFTs of roughly twice the length, operating on real data with even symmetry (since the Fourier transform of a real and even function is real and even), where in some variants the input and/or output data are shifted by half a sample.
Discrete delta-potential method The discrete delta potential method is a combination of both numerical and analytic method used to solve the Schrödinger equation the main feature of this method is to obtain first a discrete approximation of the potential in the form:
Discrete device A discrete device (or discrete component) is an electronic component with just one circuit element, either passive (resistor, capacitor, inductor, diode) or active (transistor or vacuum tube), other than an integrated circuit. The term is used to distinguish the component from integrated circuits and hybrid circuits, which are built from several circuit elements in one package.
Discrete element method The term discrete element method (DEM) is a family of numerical methods for computing the motion of a large number of particles like molecules or grains of sand. The method was originally applied by Cundall in 1971 to problems in rock mechanics.
Discrete Fourier transform In mathematics, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), sometimes called the finite Fourier transform, is a Fourier transform widely employed in signal processing and related fields to analyze the frequencies contained in a sampled signal, to solve partial differential equations, and to perform other operations such as convolutions. The DFT can be computed efficiently in practice using a fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm.
Discrete geometry Discrete geometry or combinatorial geometry may be loosely defined as study of geometrical objects and properties that are discrete or combinatorial, either by their nature or by their representation; the study that does not essentially rely on the notion of continuity.
Discrete Hartley transform A discrete Hartley transform (DHT) is a Fourier-related transform of discrete, periodic data similar to the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), with analogous applications in signal processing and related fields. Its main distinction from the DFT is that it transforms real inputs to real outputs, with no intrinsic involvement of complex numbers.
Discrete choice In economics, discrete choice problems involve choices between two or more discrete alternatives, such as entering or not entering the labor market, or choosing between modes of transport. Such choices contrast with standard consumption models in which the quantity of each good consumed is assumed to be continuously variable.
Discrete logarithm In mathematics, specifically in abstract algebra and its applications, discrete logarithms are group-theoretic analogues of ordinary logarithms. The problem of computing discrete logarithms is a sort of sibling to the problem of integer factorization, in that both problems are difficult (no efficient algorithms are known for non-quantum computers), algorithms from one problem are often adapted to the other, and the difficulty of both problems has been exploited to construct various cryptographic (code) systems.
Discrete Laplace operator In mathematics, the discrete Laplace operator is an analog of the continuous Laplace operator, defined so that it has meaning on a graph or a discrete grid. The discrete Laplace operator occurs in physics problems such as the Ising model and loop quantum gravity, as well as in the study of discrete dynamical systems.
Discrete mathematics Discrete mathematics, also called finite mathematics, is the study of mathematical structures that are fundamentally discrete, in the sense of not supporting or requiring the notion of continuity. Most, if not all, of the objects studied in finite mathematics are countable sets, such as integers, finite graphs, and formal languages.
Discrete probability distribution In mathematics, a probability distribution is called discrete, if it is fully characterized by a probability mass function. Thus, the distribution of a random variable X is discrete, and X is then called a discrete random variable, if
Discrete series representation In mathematics, a discrete series representation is an irreducible unitary representation of a topological group G that is a subrepresentation of the left (or equivalently right) regular representation of G on L2(G). In the Plancherel measure, such representations have positive measure.
Discrete sine transform In mathematics, the discrete sine transform (DST) is a Fourier-related transform similar to the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), but using a purely real matrix. It is equivalent to the imaginary parts of a DFT of roughly twice the length, operating on real data with odd symmetry (since the Fourier transform of a real and odd function is imaginary and odd), where in some variants the input and/or output data are shifted by half a sample.
Discrete space In topology and related fields of mathematics, a discrete space is a particularly simple example of a topological space or similar structure, one in which the points are "isolated" from each other in a certain sense.
Discrete spectrum In physics, discrete spectrum is a finite set or a countable set of eigenvalues of an operator. An operator acting on a Hilbert space is said to have a discrete spectrum if its eigenvalues cannot be changed continuously.
Discrete system A discrete system or discrete-time system, as opposed to a continuous-time system, is one in which the signals are sampled periodically. It is usually used to connote an analog sampled system, rather than a digital sampled system, which uses quantized values.
Discretionary deposit A discretionary deposit is the term given to a device by medieval European bankers as a method of circumventing Catholic canon law edicts prohibiting the sin of usury. At the time, most Christian nations heavily incorporated Biblical scripture into their laws, and as such it was illegal for any person to charge interest on a loan of money.
Discretionary jurisdiction Discretionary jurisdiction is a legal term used to describe a circumstance where a court has the power to decide whether to hear a particular case brought before it. Most courts have no such power, and must entertain any case properly filed, so long as the court has subject matter jurisdiction over the questions of law which must be decided, and in personam jurisdiction over the parties to the case.
Discretionary trust A discretionary trustSometimes referred as a family trust in Australia is a trust where the beneficiaries and/or their entitlements to the trust fund are not fixed, but are determined by the criteria set out in the trust instrument by the settlor. Where the discretionary trust is a testamentary trust, it is common for the settlor to leave a letter of wishes for the trustees to guide them as to the settlor's wishes in the exercise of their discretion.
Discretization error In numerical analysis, computational physics, and simulation, discretization error is error resulting from the fact that a function of a continuous variable is represented in the computer by a finite number of evaluations, for example, on a lattice. Discretization error can usually be reduced by using a more finely spaced lattice, with an increased computational cost.
Discriminant In algebra, the discriminant of a polynomial is a certain expression in the coefficients of the polynomial which equals zero if and only if the polynomial has multiple roots in the complex numbers. For example, the discriminant of the quadratic polynomial

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