Medium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The word medium (from Latin, in which it means, "the one in the middle") can have different meanings in different contexts. Usually it has something to do with either a material substance, or a form of mediation.
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Titles
- The Medium is an opera by Gian Carlo Menotti.
- Medium is the title of a 2005 American television series.
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Medium/media
When medium is used as the singular of media, it can have several different meanings.
In communications and technology:
- In industrial engineering, a gaseous, vaporous, fluid or shapeless solid material that plays a role in processing (processing medium), or a gaseous, vaporous or fluid material that transports energy (e.g. hydraulic fluid). When refering to the conveying of energy, the term may be used to include electric energy
- In physics, a transmission medium)
- A given type of mass media
- A given type of recording medium
- Interactive media
Scientific meanings:
- In optics, a medium (optics) is something that is homogeneous on lengthscales comparable with the wavelength of the light being considered.
- In biotechnology, a growth medium.
- In chemistry, a solvent.
- In biology, an environment in the middle of which an organism lives; e.g. "fish require an aqueous medium."
- In medicine and paleontology, a substance in which specimens are preserved or displayed.
- In astronomy, the interplanetary medium or the interstellar medium.
- An excitable medium.
In art:
- A liquid with which pigment is mixed by a painter.
- The type of physical material with which a work of art is created. (See: Art techniques and materials.)
- Types of digitally manifested or controlled forms used by artists (text, audio, graphics, animation, video, robotics, aromatics, light, etc.)
Education:
- The medium of instruction is the language used to teach in.
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Medium/mediums
Certain other uses of the word medium have the plural mediums.
- In everyday life a size that is in the middle (T-shirts can be XS, S, M, L, XL or XXL) between very little and very large, average or mean in a range of sizes or conditions. Usually, one of only a few sizes, rather than many. For example, items such as clothes or drinks at a fast food restaurant might come in three sizes: small, medium, and large.
- A state that is intermediate between extremes; a middle position; "a happy medium".
- In parapsychology, a spiritual medium is a person who claims to serve as an intermediary between the living and the dead.
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Other meanings
- MEDIUM is an Architectural design company based in Montreal Canada.
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Quotations
Marshall McLuhan was famous for saying "The medium is the message."
