resonance
(ˈrɛzənəns)
Also 5 resonn-.
[a. OF. resonance, resonnance (15th c.; mod.F. résonance), = It. risonanza, Sp. and Pg. resonancia, ad. L. resonantia echo (Vitruvius), f. resonāre to resound: see -ance.]
1. a. The reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection, or spec. by synchronous vibration.
| 1491 Caxton Vitas Patr. (W. de W. 1495) i. xlviii. 92/1 Merueyllous howlynges and waylynges.., wherof the resonnaunce or sonne was soo horryble that it semyd it wente vppe to heuen. 1502 Ord. Crysten Men (W. de W. 1506) v. vii. PP ij, For the beaute, for the force and for the resonaunce. 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 67 Let us see (I say) what resonance and melodie bare wood may yeeld. 1608 Heywood Lucrece i. i, Ther's no resonance In a bare stile: my title beares no breadth. 1776 Burney Hist. Music (1789) I. viii. 149 Resonance is but an aggregate of echos or of quick repetitions and returns of the same sound. 1833 Cycl. Pract. Med. I. 219/1 If percussion be practised on a soft and inelastic surface, the impulse..will elicit no resonance from it. 1876 tr. Blaserna's Sound ii. 41 A room in which sound shall be considerably strengthened without degenerating into resonance. |
b. Path. The sound heard in auscultation of the chest while the person is speaking, or that elicited by percussion of various parts of the body.
| 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) II. 526 [Auscultation] affords, under different circumstances, four different kinds of measure, as that of its degree of intensity, which M. Laennec has denominated resonance. 1845 P. M. Latham Lect. Clin. Med. I. i. 15 There are other sounds..entirely produced by our percussion of the præcordial region. These should rather be called resonances than sounds. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. IV. 655 When the alveoli are filled with coagulum, although the bronchi still contain air, the resonance is completely lost. |
c. Electr. The phenomenon of an oscillating signal (as an electric current or electromagnetic radiation) producing an effect upon an oscillating current of the same frequency; the condition in which a circuit or device produces the largest possible response to an applied oscillating signal,
esp. when its inductive reactance balances its capacitative reactance.
| 1886 Electrician 20 Aug. 296/2 By this to-and-fro reflection, or electrical reverberation or resonance, the amplitude of the received current may be made far greater than the strength of the steady-flow current from the same impressed force. 1889 Fleming Altern. Current Transf. I. 420 In order to determine whether..the oscillations were of the nature of a regular vibration, he availed himself of the principle of resonance. 1893 Sloane Electr. Dict. 470 When exposed to electric resonance, or to a sympathetic electric oscillatory discharge, a spark passes from across the gap. 1897 A. Hay Princ. Alternate-Current Working xii. 159 This phenomenon of the neutralisation of an inductance by means of a capacity is generally referred to as electrical resonance. 1920 E. W. Stone Elem. Radiotelegr. i. 22 When these two reactances are equal, a state of resonance is said to obtain. 1920 Whittaker's Electr. Engineer's Pocket-bk. (ed. 4) 446 Resonance is rarely established with the fundamental frequency of the supply, but is generally due to harmonics. 1943 C. L. Boltz Basic Radio viii. 129 The phenomenon of a circuit responding most to one frequency is called resonance. 1959 K. Henney Radio Engin. Handbk. (ed. 5) vi. 46 It was realized that a hollow closed conducting box of arbitrary shape possessed electrical resonance properties similar to the conventional coil and capacitor circuit. 1964 R. F. Ficchi Electr. Interference v. 48 Past the point of resonance, the inductive reactance continues to increase and the capacitor is no longer effective as a bypass filter. 1975 D. G. Fink Electronics Engineers' Handbk. xv. 30 One type of forced commutation uses resonance to generate an alternation which brings the current in a conducting thyristor to zero. |
d. Physics and
Chem. (
i) Generally, a condition in which a particle is subjected to an oscillating influence (as an electromagnetic field or another particle) of such a frequency that a transfer of energy occurs or reaches a maximum; an instance of this; an exchange of energy occurring under such conditions.
| 1895 Abstr. Physical Papers (Physical Soc.) I. 355 It is thus impossible that resonance should obtain between the electric waves of Hertz and the molecules of a body, and consequently impossible for an ordinary prism to disperse electric waves. 1902 Phil. Mag. III. 396 A new type of light absorption, which it may be possible to refer to the electrical resonance of small metallic particles for waves of light. Ibid. IV. 428 The variable nature of the colour..makes it appear improbable that the action is similar to that of aniline dyes; namely, a resonance within the molecule. 1931 Proc. R. Soc. A. CXXX. 477 The possibility of the occurrence of line spectra due to a resonance between the α-particle and the nucleus. 1935 Physical Rev. XLVII. 751/2 The large cross sections [for neutron scattering] may thus be called a resonance effect, but the ‘resonance’ is very unsharp. 1959 Physical Rev. Lett. II. 427/1 Quite a narrow resonance (half⁓width ≤ 20 Mev) appears in these cross sections just below this threshold. 1966 Williams & Fleming Spectrosc. Methods Org. Chem. iv. 78 Since different protons in an organic molecule have varying electronic environments, the precise value of the magnetic field required to bring any one into resonance at constant frequency will vary slightly from proton to proton. 1970 I. E. McCarthy Nuclear Reactions i. i. 6 The reaction occurred preferentially at four different energies between about 4 MeV and 5·3 MeV. Resonance was said to occur in the α, Al27 system at these energies. 1974 Accounts Chem. Res. VII. 341/2 The Raman spectra are dominated by the porphyrin vibrational modes which are enhanced by resonance with the allowed electronic transitions in the visible and near-ultraviolet region. 1976 Sci. Amer. Jan. 50/2 The method of detection employed is an application of Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and it consists in searching for an enhancement at a particular energy in the probability of interaction between known particles. Such an enhancement is called a resonance. |
(
ii)
Chem. = mesomerism b.
| 1927 Sci. Abstr. A. XXX. 84 (heading) The problem of several bodies and resonance in quantum mechanics. [Abstr. of paper by W. Heisenberg in Ztschr. f. Physik (1926) XXXIX. 499.] 1931 Physical Rev. XXXVII. 489 In some cases there may be several ways of drawing valence bonds in a given compound. In such cases, the real situation is again a combination of the various possibilities, and on account of resonance the energy is lower than it would otherwise be. 1939 L. Pauling Nature of Chem. Bond ii. 35 In case that the extreme covalent structure A:B and the extreme ionic structure A + B- correspond separately to the same bond energy value, then the two structures will contribute equally to the actual state of the molecule, and the actual bond energy will be greater than the bond energy for either structure alone by an amount equal to the interaction energy of the two structures; that is, resonance between the two structures will stabilize the molecule. Ibid. xii. 408 A substance showing resonance between two or more valence-bond structures does not contain molecules with the configuration and properties usually associated with these structures. 1950 N. V. Sidgwick Chem. Elements I. 525 From the crystal structure of sodium formate Zachariasen has shown that in the ion there is complete resonance between the two C{b1}O groups. 1968 Nature 24 Aug. 801/2 This departure from planarity, by interfering with resonance, was expected to make the molecule so unstable that one hardly expected to find it. 1978 P. W. Atkins Physical Chem. xv. 494 These structures are less stable than the Kekulé forms, because the A{b1}D bonds, etc., are long and weak; therefore, although they must be allowed to take part in the resonance they contribute more weakly. |
(
iii)
spec. (also
magnetic resonance) the transition of a particle possessing a magnetic moment between different quantum states in the presence of a magnetic field and electromagnetic radiation of the appropriate frequency; a spectroscopic technique (as
electron spin resonance,
nuclear magnetic resonance, etc.) in which such phenomena are observed.
| 1938 Physical Rev. LIII. 318/2 The experimental procedure is to vary the homogeneous field for some given value of the frequency of the oscillating field until the resonance is observed by a drop in intensity at the detector and a subsequent recovery when the resonance value is passed. 1942 Nuclear magnetic resonance [see nuclear a. 4]. 1952 Physical Rev. LXXXVIII. 951/1 We have observed conduction electron spin resonance absorption in fine particles of metallic sodium. 1957 Endeavour Oct. 185/1 When atomic nuclei are placed in a constant magnetic field of high intensity and subjected at the same time to a radio⁓frequency alternating field, a transfer of energy takes place between the high-frequency field and the nucleus. This phenomenon is known as nuclear magnetic resonance. 1965 R. N. Dixon Spectroscopy & Structure viii. 182 Electron spin resonance spectrometers usually use fields of the order of 3000 G, and the resonance is then at microwave frequencies of about 9000 Mc/sec. 1967 Atkins & Symons Struct. Inorg. Radicals i. 7 Signals can be detected by nuclear magnetic resonance under conditions where lines are too broad to detect by electron spin resonance. 1977 Nature 17 Nov. 272/2 The spectrum of the enriched pigment contains one additional resonance at approximately 130·8 p.p.m. downfield from TSP-d4. |
(
iv)
spec. in
Nuclear Physics, a short-lived particle, or an excited state of a particle, manifested as an increase, at certain well-defined energies, in the probability of interaction of other particles.
| 1964 Physical Rev. Lett. XIII. 64/2 We have searched for a possible spin alignment of the resonance by analyzing the strong decay into ξ* (1530) + π. 1965 Science 10 Sept. 1183/2 When the nucleon is exposed to any kind of high-energy beams, it is transformed into short-lived states of higher energy, which are known under various names, such as ‘hyperons’ or ‘resonances’. 1969 Times 5 Feb. 13/7 The Xi resonances belong to the heavier class of nuclear particles known as baryons. 1972 G. L. Wick Elem. Particles iv. 60 Analyses of particle tracks also helped to reveal numerous short-lived particles called resonances. 1975 Physics Bull. Dec. 537/3 Excited states of the nucleons, so called resonances, can be produced by inelastic electron scattering. |
e. Mech. (
i) A condition in which an object or system is subjected to an oscillating force having a frequency close to that of a natural vibration of the object or system; the resulting amplification of the natural vibration.
| 1899 Franklin & Williamson Elem. Alternating Currents v. 59 Mechanical resonance. If a periodic force of given maximum value and given frequency acts upon the body..the body will be set vibrating at the same frequency as that of the force, and the violence of the motion will be greatest, for the given value of the periodic force, when the frequency of the force is equal to the proper frequency of the body. 1913 Phil. Mag. XXVI. 125 If the lower bob is of solid metal..its damping coefficient will be small and the resonance in consequence probably inconveniently sharp. 1935 J. E. Younger Struct. Design Metal Airplanes xv. 272 In the prevention of dangerous structural vibration, the first principle is to avoid resonance. 1952 D. E. Christie Intermediate College Mech. xii. 306 In practical engineering it is frequently desirable to keep forced oscillations well away from resonance. 1959 Listener 5 Feb. 252/1 Where the lengths of waves and ship are almost equal, we experience severe pitch and heave motions... This ‘resonance’ can be destroyed in two ways. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia VIII. 525/1 Mechanical resonance..is known to have built up to such large proportions as to be destructive, as in the case of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. |
(
ii) Amplification of wave or tidal motion in a body of water when this motion has the same frequency as a natural vibration of the body of water.
| 1955 P. H. Kuenen Realms of Water ii. 37 Lake Baikal..has..no resonance whatever and the tide is less than one inch. Ibid. 42 In the Malay Archipelago..resonances in the separate basins with natural periods of oscillation. 1975 New Yorker 12 May 94/2 Certain harbors sometimes have problems with a phenomenon known as resonance, wherein waves that might be, say, two feet high on the outside build up energy within the harbor until waves in there stand ten feet high or higher. |
f. Astr. The circumstance or phenomenon of the periods of revolution of two bodies about a single primary being, exactly or approximately, in the ratio of two small integers.
| 1923 Astron. Jrnl. XXXV. 70/2 From the mechanical point of view, the chief feature of the motion of an asteroid of the Trojan group is due to resonance. 1928 Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. XXXIV. 283 Here the millions of ‘stones’ or ‘rocks’ which must constitute those rings revolve round Saturn and resonances are caused by the action of its larger satellites. 1968 R. A. Lyttleton Mysteries Solar Syst. vii. 229 The adopted value implied a period of the unknown planet of some 218 years, which is not very different from three times the period of Uranus, namely 84 years. It would be sufficiently near in fact to give a mild resonance, because of the approximate 3:1 ratio. 1979 Science 5 Oct. 39/1 Mimas has been implicated because it orbits Saturn in exactly twice the time that any particles happening to orbit within the Cassini division would. This whole-number relationship of orbital periods is called resonance. |
g. fig. and other
transf. uses.
| 1607 R. C[arew] tr. Estienne's World of Wonders 298 So ought our hearts..to haue no other resonance but of good thoughts. 1828 Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 207 He has a resonance in his bosom for every note of human feeling. 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. ii. xvii, Hints of this, intended to be complimentary, found an angry resonance in him. 1892 J. Sully Human Mind II. xiv. 58 That the corporeal resonance does form an essential ingredient in emotion is abundantly proved by a variety of facts. 1925 J. Laird Our Minds & Their Bodies i. 21 It is the commonest thing in the world to say that we are ‘not ourselves’ when our bodies, so to say, ring differently to us from their normal resonance. 1939 Scrutiny VII. 441 In particular, his temperament was painfully out of resonance with his father's. 1956 Day & de la Warr New Worlds beyond Atom v. 34 A part of the wave-form emitted by the drug forms a discord with the radiations of the disease while another part of it is in resonance with the organ which is being treated. 1962 E. F. Haden et al. Resonance-Theory for Linguistics 48 Resonance in Linguistics is a bond, imagined as a hybrid or a wave, linking two language entities. 1965 J. M. Stephens Psychol. of Classroom Learning vii. 176/2 In real life many problems have been solved by this seemingly mysterious, unconscious ‘resonance’. 1967 E. H. Lenneberg Biol. Foundations Lang. ix. 378 Perhaps a better metaphor still is the concept of resonance... Exposure to adult language behavior has an excitatory effect upon the actualization process much the same way a certain frequency may have..upon a specific resonator; the object begins to vibrate in the presence of the sound. In the case of language onset, the energy required for the resonance is, in a sense, supplied by the individual himself. 1976 Southern Even. Echo (Southampton) 16 Nov. 3/5 For much of the piece there is an extra resonance and significance about Gray's otherwise-familiar anti-hero. 1977 A. Sheridan tr. J. Lacan's {Eacu}crits iii. 86 What is redundant as far as information is concerned is precisely that which does duty as resonance in speech. |
2. a. The quality of reinforcing or prolonging a sound by vibration.
| 1669 Boyle Physiol. Ess., Absol. Rest §7 Some famous Lutes..attained not their full seasoning and best resonance, till they were about fourscore year old. 1835–6 Todd's Cycl. Anat. I. 481/1 Intended for the reception of the sounds produced by the resonance of the bony case just described. 1875 Ellis tr. Helmholtz' Sensat. Tone i. v. §7 The investigation of the resonance of the cavity of the mouth is of great importance. |
b. The enhancement of one colour by its proximity to another or others.
Cf. resonant a. 2 b.
| 1933 Burlington Mag. Jan. 3/1, I knew that Titian was a master of rich and sumptuous colour. I knew how splendidly he could evoke from his blues and crimsons their fullest and deepest resonance. |
3. attrib., as
resonance apparatus,
resonance box,
resonance frequency,
resonance particle,
resonance vibration, etc.;
resonance absorption Nuclear Physics, absorption of energy or of a particle under conditions of resonance;
spec. = next;
resonance capture Nuclear Physics, absorption of a particle by an atomic nucleus which occurs only for certain well-defined values of particle energy;
resonance chamber = resonator 2;
resonance energy, (
a) an energy value at which resonance occurs; (
b)
Chem., the extent of stabilization of a molecular structure attributed to mesomerism;
resonance fluorescence, fluorescence in which the light emitted has the same wavelength as that which excites the emission;
resonance hybrid Chem., a molecular structure which is a mesomeric combination of a number of forms;
resonance radiation, (the radiation emitted in) resonance fluorescence;
resonance Raman spectrum [
Raman], a Raman spectrum excited by light having a frequency equal to that of a band in the absorption spectrum of the scattering substance (see
quot. 1975
1); so
resonance Raman effect,
resonance spectroscopy, etc.;
resonance scattering Nuclear Physics, elastic scattering of a particle by an atomic nucleus at an energy of the incident particle for which the scattering cross-section is large compared with that for adjacent values of the energy (
cf. potential scattering s.v. potential n. 4 c);
resonance stabilization Chem. = resonance energy (
b).
| 1945 H. D. Smyth Gen. Acct. Devel. Atomic Energy Mil. Purposes iv. 24 The term ‘*resonance absorption’ is used to describe the very strong absorption of neutrons by U-238 when the neutron energies are in certain definite portions of the energy region. 1952 [see sense 1 d (iii) above]. 1961 G. R. Choppin Exper. Nuclear Chem. viii. 114 In indium a resonance absorption occurs for neutrons with a kinetic energy of 1·44 ev. |
| a 1879 Randegger Singing 11 The chest, mouth, or head..only act respectively as the ‘*resonance apparatus’ of the voice. |
| 1873 S. Taylor Sound & Music (1896) 85 This convenient adjunct to a tuning-fork goes by the name of a *resonance-box. |
| 1937 G. Gamow Struct. Atomic Nuclei xi. 224 We may have here a case of *resonance-capture. 1964 M. Gowing Britain & Atomic Energy 1939–45 i. 40 Various other ways of reducing the capture of neutrons by resonance capture..were considered. |
| 1896 Curtis Voice Building (1901) 74 The condition and shape of the *resonance cavities..give to the human voice a peculiar beauty and timbre. |
| 1919 D. Jones Outl. Eng. Phonetics vi. 15 The effect of a *resonance chamber in modifying quality of tone may be illustrated experimentally. 1962 A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio iii. 59 The mouth, nose and throat cavities act as resonance chambers for sound coming from the vocal cords. |
| 1931 Jrnl. Amer. Chem. Soc. LIII. 1368 The energy of the bond is largely the *resonance or interchange energy of two electrons. 1941 in M. Gowing Britain & Atomic Energy 1939–45 (1964) 430 Neutrons of certain critical, or resonance, energies are strongly absorbed by uranium without causing fission. 1965 Phillips & Williams Inorg. Chem. I. iii. 75 The difference between the computed binding energy of a hypothetical structure and that computed using all possible structures, i.e. the actual binding energy of the real molecule, is called the resonance energy. |
| 1925 Sci. Abstr. A. XXVIII. 121 In the case of *resonance fluorescence the re-emitted line possesses a greater Doppler width than the incident line. 1977 I. M. Campbell Energy & Atmosphere viii. 260 (caption) Schematic diagram of apparatus for the resonance fluorescence detection of hydroxyl radicals in air. |
| 1921 W. H. Eccles Continuous Wave Wireless Telegr. iii. 172 When an external sine force acts upon a vibrator, whether at the *resonance frequency or not, it gradually builds up a vibrating motion to a definite final amplitude. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia XIX. 101/2 Wind supplied the power causing the bridge to vibrate at one of its torsional resonance frequencies without sufficient damping. |
| 1939 L. Pauling Nature Chem. Bond xii. 407 Each of these tautomers in its normal state is represented..by a *resonance hybrid of this structure and others. 1964 N. G. Clark Mod. Org. Chem. xxv. 525 The true structure of benzene is..a resonance hybrid, to which the two Kekulé formulae..contribute equally. |
| 1975 Sci. Amer. May 43/2 Other *resonance particles decay by the ‘strong’ interaction in about 10-23 second. |
| 1905 R. W. Wood in Phil. Mag. X. 514 Repeated efforts have been made..to detect a lateral emission of yellow light by sodium vapour when in the act of absorbing sodium light... This seems to be the first case found of the phenomenon, which it may perhaps be well to style *resonance radiation, to distinguish it from fluorescence. 1928 [see quench v. 3 d]. 1963 R. W. Ditchburn Light (ed. 2) xvii. 661 Sodium absorbs and re-emits as resonance radiation the two well-known yellow lines at wavelengths 5890 Å. and 5896 Å. |
| 1960 tr. Shorygin & Krushinskii in Soviet Physics Doklady V. 793 The possibility of observing *resonance Raman spectra is limited to a considerable degree by the loss of light due to absorption. 1962 Pure & Appl. Chem. IV. 87 The study of the resonance Raman effect can contribute not only to the extension of the technique of Raman spectroscopy, but also to an investigation of the nature of the interaction of light with matter. 1975 Jrnl. Chem. Soc.: Dalton Trans. 381/1 When a molecule..is excited with a laser beam whose wavenumber corresponds or closely corresponds with the band maximum of a strongly allowed electronic transition of the molecule, then a rigorous resonance Raman (r.r.) spectrum may be obtained. Such spectra are normally characterised by an enormous increase in the intensity of a totally symmetric fundamental of the molecule together with the appearance of long overtone progressions in this same fundamental. 1975 Nature 25 Dec. 770/1 The results of Lewis and Spoonhower using resonance Raman spectroscopy imply the existence of a strong complex between retinal and a tryptophan residue in rhodopsin. |
| 1937 Bethe & Placzek in Physical Rev. LI. 462/1 Near resonance, the *resonance scattering σ2 must be added to the potential scattering. 1955 A. E. S. Green Nuclear Physics xiii. 456 These deviations are attributed to the interference between the potential and resonance scattering associated with the lth partial wave. 1978 Nature 26 Oct. 730/1 Resonance scattering of light from a beam of free atoms is an ideal technique for making precise absolute measurements of the shift in wavelength of the light relative to the reference wavelength of the beam atoms. |
| 1939 L. Pauling Nature Chem. Bond i. 10 Because the resonating system does not have a structure intermediate between those involved in the resonance, but..a structure which is further changed by the *resonance stabilization, I prefer not to use the word ‘mesomerism’..for the resonance phenomenon. 1952 [see oxyanion]. 1978 K. Yates Hückel Molecular Orbital Theory iii. 118 In order to evaluate the resonance stabilization of benzene, as represented by the formulation (XI), a comparison should be made with cyclohexatrienes possessing the benzene geometry. |
| 1909 Westm. Gaz. 4 Sept. 10/1 If the period of vibration of the two parts is the same ‘*resonance vibrations’ are set up. |
So
ˈresonancy.
rare—1.
| 1681 H. More Expos. Dan. Pref. 10 There might be a Paronomasticall Resonancy of words in his mind. |