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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK
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To: Scarecrow who wrote (63076)12/8/1999 9:23:00 AM
From: lorrie coey  Read Replies (2) of 67261
 
From Jargon File (4.0.0/24 July 1996) (jargon)

nonlinear adj : math; not directly proportional [ant: {linear}]
nonlinear /adj./ [scientific computation]

1. Behaving in an erratic and unpredictable fashion; unstable. When used to describe the behavior of a machine or program, **it suggests that said machine or program is being forced to run far outside of design specifications. This behavior may be induced by unreasonable inputs, or may be triggered when a more mundane bug sends the computation far off from its expected course.

2. When describing the behavior of a person, suggests a tantrum or a {flame}.

"When you talk to Bob, don't mention the drug problem or he'll go nonlinear for hours."

In this context, 'go nonlinear' connotes 'blow up out of proportion' (proportion connotes linearity).

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) (foldoc)

nonlinear

(Scientific computation) A property of a system whose output is not proportional to its input. For example, a {transistor} has a region of input voltages for which its output voltage is found by multiplying the input voltage by the gain of the transistor.
Outside this region though, the transistor behaves non-linearly, meaning that it does not obey this simple equation. Whoa!!

Thusly...

The behavior of a system containing non-linear components is thus harder to model and to predict.
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