Dispersion

Biology

• Biological dispersal, the distribution of spores, fruits and their seeds, etc.

Physics

• A phenomenon that causes the separation of a wave into components of varying frequency:
• Dispersion relation
• Dispersion (optics) (see also Abbe number)
• Dispersion (water waves)
• Dielectric dispersion
• Dispersive mass transfer, in fluid dynamics, the spreading of mass from areas of high to low concentration
• Atmospheric pollution dispersion
• Modal dispersion, spreading signals in multimode fibers and waveguides by a distortion mechanism
• Polarization mode dispersion (PMD), different polarizations of light in a waveguide may travel at different speeds due to random imperfections and asymmetries of the waveguide

Geology

• Dispersion (geology), a process whereby sodic soil disperses when exposed to water

Materials science

• Dispersion (materials science), the fraction of atoms of a material exposed to the surface

Statistics

• Statistical dispersion, quantifiable variation of measurements of differing members of a population
• Coefficient of dispersion, a measure to quantify whether a set of observed occurrences are relatively clustered or dispersed

Economics and finance

• Dispersion (finance), a measure for the statistical distribution of portfolio returns
• Price dispersion, variation in prices across sellers of the same item
• Wage dispersion refers to the amount of variation in wages encountered in an economy