dimensional analysis
Noun
Meaning
dimensional analysis (uncountable)
(mathematics, physics) The study of the dimensions of physical quantities; used to obtain information about large complex systems, and as a means of checking mathematical and physics equations.
Examples
Dimensional analysis is also routinely used as a check on the plausibility of derived equations and computations.
Dimensional analysis can sometimes yield strong statements about the irrelevance of some quantities in a problem, or the need for additional parameters.
Dimensional analysis is also used to derive relationships between the physical quantities that are involved in a particular phenomenon that one wishes to understand and characterize.
Dimensional analysis itself has little to say about these constants, but it is useful to know that they very often have a magnitude of order unity.