nonlocality
|non-lo-cal-i-ty|
🇺🇸
/ˌnɑnloʊˈkælɪti/
🇬🇧
/ˌnɒnləʊˈkælɪti/
not limited by locality / action across distance
Etymology
'nonlocality' originates from English, formed by the prefix 'non-' (meaning 'not') combined with 'locality'. 'locality' itself ultimately comes from Latin, specifically from 'localis' derived from 'locus', where 'locus' meant 'place'.
'locality' changed from Medieval Latin 'localitas' and Old French 'localité' and eventually became the modern English word 'locality'; the modern compound 'nonlocality' is a more recent English formation created by adding the negative prefix 'non-' to 'locality'.
Initially 'locality' referred simply to the quality or condition of being local (related to a place); over time 'locality' retained that sense while the compound 'nonlocality' developed to denote the absence of locality or phenomena that act across distance (especially in physics).
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
in physics (especially quantum mechanics), the property or phenomenon whereby events or measurements at one location can be correlated with or have instantaneous effects on events at another location, apparently violating classical locality constraints (often discussed in the context of entanglement and Bell inequalities).
Experiments testing Bell inequalities provide strong evidence for quantum nonlocality.
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Noun 2
in mathematics, computer science, or field theories, the characteristic of a function, operator, or interaction that depends on values or conditions at distant points or over extended regions rather than only on local values.
Some integral operators are inherently nonlocal because their output at a point involves values over an interval or domain.
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Last updated: 2025/09/28 13:53