Quantity or amount is a property that can exist as a
multitude
Multitude is a term for a group of people who cannot be classed under any other distinct category, except for their shared fact of existence. Though its use dates back to antiquity, the term first entered into the lexicon of political philosophy w ...
or
magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
, which illustrate
discontinuity and
continuity. Quantities can be compared in terms of "more", "less", or "equal", or by assigning a numerical value multiple of a
unit of measurement
A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude (mathematics), magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind can ...
.
Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
,
time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
,
distance
Distance is a numerical or occasionally qualitative measurement of how far apart objects or points are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). ...
,
heat
In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...
, and
angle
In Euclidean geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two Ray (geometry), rays, called the ''Side (plane geometry), sides'' of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the ''vertex (geometry), vertex'' of the angle.
Angles formed by two ...
are among the familiar examples of quantitative properties.
Quantity is among the basic
classes of things along with
quality
Quality may refer to:
Concepts
*Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something
*Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property
*Quality (physics), in response theory
*Energy quality, used in various science discipli ...
,
substance
Substance may refer to:
* Matter, anything that has mass and takes up space
Chemistry
* Chemical substance, a material with a definite chemical composition
* Drug substance
** Substance abuse, drug-related healthcare and social policy diagnosis ...
, change, and relation. Some quantities are such by their inner nature (as number), while others function as states (properties, dimensions, attributes) of things such as heavy and light, long and short, broad and narrow, small and great, or much and little.
Under the name of multitude comes what is discontinuous and discrete and divisible ultimately into indivisibles, such as: ''army, fleet, flock, government, company, party, people, mess (military), chorus, crowd'', and ''number''; all which are cases of
collective nouns
In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific to one kind of thing. For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people (" ...
. Under the name of magnitude comes what is continuous and unified and divisible only into smaller divisibles, such as: ''matter, mass, energy, liquid, material''—all cases of non-collective nouns.
Along with analyzing its nature and
classification Classification is a process related to categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood.
Classification is the grouping of related facts into classes.
It may also refer to:
Business, organizat ...
, the issues of quantity involve such closely related topics as dimensionality, equality, proportion, the measurements of quantities, the units of measurements, number and numbering systems, the types of numbers and their relations to each other as numerical ratios.
Background
In mathematics, the concept of quantity is an ancient one extending back to the time of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
and earlier. Aristotle regarded quantity as a fundamental ontological and scientific category. In Aristotle's
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
, quantity or quantum was classified into two different types, which he characterized as follows:
In his
''Elements'',
Euclid
Euclid (; grc-gre, Wikt:Εὐκλείδης, Εὐκλείδης; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the ''Euclid's Elements, Elements'' trea ...
developed the theory of ratios of magnitudes without studying the nature of magnitudes, as Archimedes, but giving the following significant definitions:
For Aristotle and Euclid, relations were conceived as
whole numbers (Michell, 1993).
John Wallis
John Wallis (; la, Wallisius; ) was an English clergyman and mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of infinitesimal calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal ...
later conceived of ratios of magnitudes as
real numbers
In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a ''continuous'' one-dimensional quantity such as a distance, duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that values can have arbitrarily small variations. Every real ...
:
That is, the ratio of magnitudes of any quantity, whether volume, mass, heat and so on, is a number. Following this,
Newton
Newton most commonly refers to:
* Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist
* Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton
Newton may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film
* Newton ( ...
then defined number, and the relationship between quantity and number, in the following terms:
Structure
Continuous quantities possess a particular structure that was first explicitly characterized by
Hölder (1901) as a set of axioms that define such features as ''identities'' and ''relations'' between magnitudes. In science, quantitative structure is the subject of
empirical investigation and cannot be assumed to exist ''
a priori
("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ex ...
'' for any given property. The linear
continuum
Continuum may refer to:
* Continuum (measurement), theories or models that explain gradual transitions from one condition to another without abrupt changes
Mathematics
* Continuum (set theory), the real line or the corresponding cardinal number ...
represents the prototype of continuous quantitative structure as characterized by Hölder (1901) (translated in Michell & Ernst, 1996). A fundamental feature of any type of quantity is that the relationships of equality or inequality can in principle be stated in comparisons between particular magnitudes, unlike quality, which is marked by likeness, similarity and difference, diversity. Another fundamental feature is additivity. Additivity may involve concatenation, such as adding two lengths A and B to obtain a third A + B. Additivity is not, however, restricted to extensive quantities but may also entail relations between magnitudes that can be established through experiments that permit tests of hypothesized
observable
In physics, an observable is a physical quantity that can be measured. Examples include position and momentum. In systems governed by classical mechanics, it is a real-valued "function" on the set of all possible system states. In quantum ph ...
manifestations of the additive relations of magnitudes. Another feature is continuity, on which Michell (1999, p. 51) says of length, as a type of quantitative attribute, "what continuity means is that if any arbitrary length, a, is selected as a unit, then for every positive real number, ''r'', there is a length b such that b = ''r''a". A further generalization is given by the
theory of conjoint measurement
The theory of conjoint measurement (also known as conjoint measurement or additive conjoint measurement) is a general, formal theory of continuous quantity. It was independently discovered by the French economist Gérard Debreu (1960) and by the Am ...
, independently developed by French economist
Gérard Debreu
Gérard Debreu (; 4 July 1921 – 31 December 2004) was a French-born economist and mathematician. Best known as a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began work in 1962, he won the 1983 Nobel Memorial Prize ...
(1960) and by the American mathematical psychologist
R. Duncan Luce and statistician
John Tukey
John Wilder Tukey (; June 16, 1915 – July 26, 2000) was an American mathematician and statistician, best known for the development of the fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm and box plot. The Tukey range test, the Tukey lambda distributi ...
(1964).
In mathematics
Magnitude (how much) and multitude (how many), the two principal types of quantities, are further divided as mathematical and physical. In formal terms, quantities—their ratios, proportions, order and formal relationships of equality and inequality—are studied by mathematics. The essential part of mathematical quantities consists of having a collection of
variables, each assuming a
set
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
of values. These can be a set of a single quantity, referred to as a
scalar
Scalar may refer to:
*Scalar (mathematics), an element of a field, which is used to define a vector space, usually the field of real numbers
* Scalar (physics), a physical quantity that can be described by a single element of a number field such ...
when represented by real numbers, or have multiple quantities as do
vectors and
tensor
In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects related to a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other tenso ...
s, two kinds of geometric objects.
The mathematical usage of a quantity can then be varied and so is situationally dependent. Quantities can be used as being
infinitesimal
In mathematics, an infinitesimal number is a quantity that is closer to zero than any standard real number, but that is not zero. The word ''infinitesimal'' comes from a 17th-century Modern Latin coinage ''infinitesimus'', which originally referr ...
,
arguments of a function, variables in an
expression
Expression may refer to:
Linguistics
* Expression (linguistics), a word, phrase, or sentence
* Fixed expression, a form of words with a specific meaning
* Idiom, a type of fixed expression
* Metaphorical expression, a particular word, phrase, o ...
(independent or dependent), or probabilistic as in random and
stochastic
Stochastic (, ) refers to the property of being well described by a random probability distribution. Although stochasticity and randomness are distinct in that the former refers to a modeling approach and the latter refers to phenomena themselv ...
quantities. In mathematics, magnitudes and multitudes are also not only two distinct kinds of quantity but furthermore relatable to each other.
Number theory
Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 ...
covers the topics of the
discrete quantities as numbers: number systems with their kinds and relations.
Geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
studies the issues of spatial magnitudes: straight lines, curved lines, surfaces and solids, all with their respective measurements and relationships.
A traditional
Aristotelian realist philosophy of mathematics
In the philosophy of mathematics, Aristotelian realism holds that mathematics studies properties such as symmetry, continuity and order that can be immanently realized in the physical world (or in any other world there might be). It contrasts wi ...
, stemming from
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
and remaining popular until the eighteenth century, held that mathematics is the "science of quantity". Quantity was considered to be divided into the discrete (studied by arithmetic) and the continuous (studied by geometry and later
calculus
Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...
). The theory fits reasonably well elementary or school mathematics but less well the abstract topological and algebraic structures of modern mathematics.
In physical science
Establishing quantitative structure and relationships ''between'' different quantities is the cornerstone of modern physical sciences. Physics is fundamentally a quantitative science. Its progress is chiefly achieved due to rendering the abstract qualities of material entities into physical quantities, by postulating that all material bodies marked by quantitative properties or physical dimensions are subject to some measurements and observations. Setting the units of measurement, physics covers such fundamental quantities as space (length, breadth, and depth) and time, mass and force, temperature, energy, and
quanta.
A distinction has also been made between
intensive quantity
Physical properties of materials and systems can often be categorized as being either intensive or extensive, according to how the property changes when the size (or extent) of the system changes. According to IUPAC, an intensive quantity is on ...
and
extensive quantity
Physical properties of materials and systems can often be categorized as being either intensive or extensive, according to how the property changes when the size (or extent) of the system changes. According to IUPAC, an intensive quantity is one ...
as two types of quantitative property, state or relation. The magnitude of an ''intensive quantity'' does not depend on the size, or extent, of the object or system of which the quantity is a property, whereas magnitudes of an ''extensive quantity'' are additive for parts of an entity or subsystems. Thus, magnitude does depend on the extent of the entity or system in the case of extensive quantity. Examples of intensive quantities are
density
Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematical ...
and
pressure
Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country and e ...
, while examples of extensive quantities are
energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...
,
volume
Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). The de ...
, and
mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
.
In natural language
In human languages, including
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
is a
syntactic category A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasal c ...
, along with
person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
and
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
. The quantity is expressed by identifiers, definite and indefinite, and
quantifiers, definite and indefinite, as well as by three types of
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s: 1. count unit nouns or countables; 2.
mass nouns
In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete elemen ...
, uncountables, referring to the indefinite, unidentified amounts; 3. nouns of multitude (
collective noun
In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific to one kind of thing. For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people (" ...
s). The word ‘number’ belongs to a noun of multitude standing either for a single entity or for the individuals making the whole. An amount in general is expressed by a special class of words called identifiers, indefinite and definite and quantifiers, definite and indefinite. The amount may be expressed by: singular form and plural from, ordinal numbers before a count noun singular (first, second, third...), the demonstratives; definite and indefinite numbers and measurements (hundred/hundreds, million/millions), or cardinal numbers before count nouns. The set of language quantifiers covers "a few, a great number, many, several (for count names); a bit of, a little, less, a great deal (amount) of, much (for mass names); all, plenty of, a lot of, enough, more, most, some, any, both, each, either, neither, every, no". For the complex case of unidentified amounts, the parts and examples of a mass are indicated with respect to the following: a measure of a mass (two kilos of rice and twenty bottles of milk or ten pieces of paper); a piece or part of a mass (part, element, atom, item, article, drop); or a shape of a container (a basket, box, case, cup, bottle, vessel, jar).
Further examples
Some further examples of quantities are:
* 1.76 litres (
liter
The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...
s) of milk, a continuous quantity
* 2''πr'' metres, where ''r'' is the length of a
radius
In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...
of a
circle
A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...
expressed in metres (or meters), also a continuous quantity
* one apple, two apples, three apples, where the number is an integer representing the count of a denumerable collection of objects (apples)
* 500 people (also a type of
count data
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...
)
* a ''couple'' conventionally refers to two objects.
* ''a few'' usually refers to an indefinite, but usually small number, greater than one.
* ''quite a few'' also refers to an indefinite, but surprisingly (in relation to the context) large number.
* ''several'' refers to an indefinite, but usually small, number – usually indefinitely greater than "a few".
See also
*
Dimensionless quantity
A dimensionless quantity (also known as a bare quantity, pure quantity, or scalar quantity as well as quantity of dimension one) is a quantity to which no physical dimension is assigned, with a corresponding SI unit of measurement of one (or 1) ...
*
Quantification (science)
In mathematics and empirical science, quantification (or quantitation) is the act of counting and measuring that maps human sense observations and experiences into quantity, quantities. Quantification in this sense is fundamental to the scientific ...
*
Observable quantity
In statistics, latent variables (from Latin: present participle of ''lateo'', “lie hidden”) are variables that can only be inferred indirectly through a mathematical model from other observable variables that can be directly observed or ...
*
Numerical value equation
A numerical-value equation is an equation between quantities in which just the values of the quantities occurs but not the unit of measurement. Therefore, the equation requires to be used with the values the quantity has in a specific unit. A nu ...
References
* Aristotle, Logic (Organon): Categories, in Great Books of the Western World, V.1. ed. by Adler, M.J.,
Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
, Inc., Chicago (1990)
* Aristotle, Physical Treatises: Physics, in Great Books of the Western World, V.1, ed. by Adler, M.J., Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Chicago (1990)
* Aristotle, Metaphysics, in Great Books of the Western World, V.1, ed. by Adler, M.J., Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Chicago (1990)
* Franklin, J. (2014)
Quantity and number in ''Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics'', ed. D.D. Novotny and L. Novak, New York: Routledge, 221-44.
* Hölder, O. (1901). Die Axiome der Quantität und die Lehre vom Mass. ''Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig'', Mathematische-Physicke Klasse, 53, 1-64.
* Klein, J. (1968). ''Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra. Cambridge''. Mass:
MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962.
History
The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...
.
* Laycock, H. (2006). Words without Objects: Oxford, Clarendon Press
Oxfordscholarship.com* Michell, J. (1993). The origins of the representational theory of measurement: Helmholtz, Hölder, and Russell. ''Studies in History and Philosophy of Science'', 24, 185-206.
* Michell, J. (1999). ''Measurement in Psychology''. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press
A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
.
* Michell, J. & Ernst, C. (1996). The axioms of quantity and the theory of measurement: translated from Part I of Otto Hölder's German text "Die Axiome der Quantität und die Lehre vom Mass". ''Journal of Mathematical Psychology'', 40, 235-252.
* Newton, I. (1728/1967). Universal Arithmetic: Or, a Treatise of Arithmetical Composition and Resolution. In D.T. Whiteside (Ed.), ''The mathematical Works of Isaac Newton'', Vol. 2 (pp. 3–134). New York: Johnson Reprint Corp.
* Wallis, J. ''Mathesis universalis'' (as quoted in Klein, 1968).
External links
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Concepts in metaphysics
Measurement
Ontology