Dear Experts,
What is the difference between maximal and maximum, minimal and minimum? The all can be used as adjectives, but when?
Thanks,
sand
I can think of no occasion that you would normally use the word “maximal.” Its use is confined to engineers, scientists, and mathematicians
I am sorry for your answers. It seems you excluded me from using the words because you believe I am neither of the professionals?! OK, it does not matter who I am, you still have not yet answered my question: what is the difference?
I have answered your question: The difference is “Maximal” is a word that you will never encounter in a normal conversation, newspaper, radio, movie, song lyric, TV program, novel, etc. If you have a specific technical career, there are probably 100s of words involved in it that nobody here would be qualified to define. I am not trying to keep it a secret.
Have you heard of this:
“To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.” - Confucius
Your answer tells me that you do not know. Period.
Please try not to take everything personal and find insults where there aren’t any: Erik was just helping you, and you should be thanking him for his clear and complete answers. Surely you didn’t mean to appear rude.
Hello Sandsoppa,
I agree with what Erik and Cerberus have posted.
Since no one has mentioned minimal vs minimum yet, I’ll try to address that question for you. I’d say the two are often used with little difference in meaning, however I do sense a difference.
As I see it, the primary difference between those two words is that “minimal” simply means “very little” or “not very much at all”. Minimal can be used to suggest that the amount of something is unusually, unexpectedly, or perhaps even suitably little/low. A “minimal amount of something” is not necessarily the lowest possible or allowable amount.
However, when we use “minimum”, we are usually referring to the lowest possible amount of something, or to the lowest allowable amount of something. In other words, less than minimum would not be possible or allowable.
To me, that is a subtle, but significant difference.
Unlike the word “minimal”, the word “maximal” tends to be restricted to an academic sort of context. I agree with Erik that it’s fairly unlikely that you’ll hear people use it in a general context.
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[size=75]“I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.” ~ Tennessee Williams[/size]
Thanks Esl_ Expert. This is what exactly what I want to hear.
I posted the question because I had not only once but many times to have difficulties to understand the difference of the two words. I had consulted my colleagues and friends who are native English speakers. The answers were different. Unfortunately, the answer by Erik was: “no occasion that you would normally use the word “maximal”. Its use is confined to engineers, scientists, and mathematicians.” OK, does it mean that if I am not either of the professionals, why do I bother? That is what I read by words. I cannot see how these answers are CLEAR and COMPLETE and HELPFUL as Cerberus mentioned. Of course, no one here is obligated to answer the question correctly, a forum for discussion. But if to post, please do provide an answer right or wrong as what Esl_ Expert did. It is funny and unfortunate that you think I am taking everything personal.
I believe I understand now why you took it personal, which I indeed think you did. Apparently you interpreted his answer thus: “does it mean that if I am not either of the professionals, why do I bother?”. However that is absolutely not what Erik meant. When he said “I can think of no occasion that you would normally use the word “maximal.” Its use is confined to engineers, scientists, and mathematicians”, he used the word “you” in an impersonal sense, equivalent to “I can think of no reason that one would normally use…”: he was not speaking of you, but of people in general. By this he simply explained that it is a technical term, nothing more.
In his second post, he made it clear that he had meant the opposite of what you thought to read in his words: not you were unqualified for understanding this word, but he was; for he is not a specialist in such a technical field, and as such cannot explain its exact usage.
In other words: he said that “maximal” is a technical term, implying that “maximum” is not, which is the difference between them; there’s your complete answer. Fair enough, he didn’t say anything on “minimal” versus “minimum”. EE’s answer was more detailed; I guess you like that better, which is understandable.
I will not reason with you whether it is personal or not because this is not what I came for.
But, I do not agree with you that Erik’s answer is complete by saying “The difference is “Maximal” is a word that you will never encounter in a normal conversation, newspaper, radio, movie, song lyric, TV program, novel, etc.”, unless he never use it in the occasions he mentioned. Interestingly, while I I Google the same words, there are many places that talk about the differences. Obviously these words are not technical only. They are “normally” being used.
Interestingly, I found a similar question posted two months ago by someone at
englishforums.com/English/Ma … q/post.htm
This question was “what’s the difference between maximal and maximum?” and it was answered by:
Mister Micawber +Quick Reply 878007 Fri, 28 Aug 09 02:55 PM
Quote: Nothing really. The noun is often used as an adjective, even though the adjective is available.
This Mister Micawber has probably the maximal/maximum (here again) posts here and most respected person, likely a manager of this website. I have no idea if this is the same person. But one thing is certain, there are not only one answer for this question. What I learned from previous posts that there are still ongoing controversies and debating in English grammar, vocabularies, etc. It reminds me another saying:
There are skies outside the sky; there are knowledge beyond the knowledge.
You should go to Google Books and do a search: books.google.com/books?q=maximal … arch+Books
and see what kinds of books use this word, go several screens down.
All I can say is my experience: I’m 50 years old, have a college degree, was raised by both parents with advanced degrees, worked on a university campus for 10 years, etc. and have never heard that word spoken out loud, just have read it. And only in technical works. Its way, way, way down on the list of words that someone needs to function in the English language. And for reading purposes, the meaning is fairly obvious. I doubt most Americans have heard it spoken. That is what I was attempting to say to the original poster. Sorry if it sounded snobby.
What MrMicawber said in that post was just that there is little difference in meaning; he did not deny that maximal is a highly technical term. But it was a good idea to look around for other places where this matter has been discussed.
Googling “maximal”, I was hard-pressed to find hits that were none of the following:
1.) Used in specific scientific discourse, such as engineering, mathematics, philosophy, and medicine.
2.) Used in pseudo-science by those who wish to impress others by difficult, i.e. out-of-proper-context, words.
2.) Used as a fictitious name in some television series or cartoon.
3.) Used as a name by wannabe trendy magazines and such.
Googling “maximal height” or “maximal length”, I only got highly scientific results, even though these are nouns that might be expected to commonly accompany them.
I’m under the impression that you take everything personal too. Besides, I think your posts make it perfectly clear that you don’t even know the concept of basic respect.
Thank you Erik for sharing your personal experience and your humbleness. I am in the same generation and older than you are. My point is: even if the words are technical terms it does not mean there is no need to know the difference. In fact, I am writing technical articles, I do want to know the difference. My frustration is that I was assumed not to use the words. If my previous posts made you uncomfortable, sorry.
Dear Infin1ty, you are welcome to join in. But I wish you provide some useful comments on how to use the words like most of the others did in the last few posts that I highly appreciate.
sand
The difference is reasonably well outlined in most good dictionaries.
According to both the Oxford ALD and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the word “maximal” is technical, and the Cambridge ALD indicates that it’s specialized, which, in this case, is another word for “technical”. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary is surprisingly reticent. Otherwise, these two words convey exactly the same meaning.
This is not the case with the words “minimal” and “minimum”, however. As Esl_Expert wrote above, the word “minimal” can generally mean “very small in amount”, not necessarily “the smallest amount”. The Cambridge ALD lists only the former meaning, thus making these words sound rather different. The Oxford ALD and LDCE, however, provide both meanings, and Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary adds that it can also mean “barely adequate”, as in “minimal standards of living”.
Thanks for all of your excellent input.
While I search more online, the things become a little bit more complicated, but interesting.
Here are two findings: one is a paragraph talking about “minimal”, I copied to the end of this post for your reference.
Another is the “maximal”. In most of the dictionaies, the synonyms or definition of “maximal” include often “maximum”, however, not in another way around when the maximum is defined as an adjective.
My ongoing questions are: If any of you experts sees the following example sentences [I copied from American Heritage Dictionary], and if the “maximal” is replaced by “maximum”, what the difference will be?
The maximal and minimal values are reached with full loaded and empty girder. [Jour. Franklin Inst., CXXVI. 240.]
A maximal muscular clench was recorded on a dynamometer. [Amer. Jour. Psychol., I. 191.]
Thanks for any comments!
Sand
Usage Note: Minimal and minimize come from the Latin adjective minimus, “least, smallest,” and people therefore use minimal to refer to the smallest possible amount, as in The amplifier reduces distortion to the minimal level that can be obtained with present technologies. In recent years, however, people have begun to use minimal more loosely to refer to a small amount, as in If you would just put in a minimal amount of time on your homework, I am sure your grades would improve. Language critics have objected to this usage, but it is fairly common. In an earlier survey, the Usage Panel was asked what minimal meant in the sentence Alcohol has a particularly unpleasant effect on me when I have a minimal amount of food in my stomach. Under the strict interpretation of minimal, this sentence should mean only “Alcohol has an unpleasant effect when I have eaten nothing.” If the looser interpretation is allowed, however, the sentence can also mean " … when I have eaten a bit." Twenty-nine percent of the Panel held to the strict interpretation (that is, “eaten nothing”); 34 percent said that it could have only the looser meaning (that is, “eaten a bit”); and 37 percent said that it could have either meaning. Thus, 71 percent allowed the looser sense of minimal, so it should be considered acceptable, at least in nontechnical use. • The verb minimize has undergone a similar extension of meaning. In its strict sense it means “to reduce to the smallest possible level,” but quite often the context requires us to interpret what the smallest possible level might be. Thus when a manager announces that The company wants to minimize the risk of accidents to line workers, we naturally think that the company plans to reduce the risk to the smallest level after considerations of efficiency and cost are taken into account, not that risks are to be reduced to the lowest level regardless of disruptions and cost. People also use minimize more loosely to mean “to make appear to be of little importance; play down,” as in The President tried to minimize the problems posed by the nation’s trade imbalance. This sense is well established.
“To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.” - Confucius
You know nothing. (^0^)
Hi,
the last message was long ago, but maybe someone else still needs the answer, which can be found here:
forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=63907
In short: something “maximal” cannot be enlarged; Something “maximum” is the biggest instance of its kind (Analogously “minimal”/“minimum”). This distinction is very special, as someone mentioned earlier, that’s possibly the reason why there hasn’t been a useful answer yet. I can only make up examples from graph theory, e.g. the following.
“T is a maximal subtree of G” means that T is no longer a tree if any edge from G (and not already in T) is added to T, so T cannot be enlarged.
“T is a maximum subtree of G” means that there is no subtree in G that has more edges and vertices than T (there may be other maximum subtrees in G, with the same size as T), so T is the “biggest”.
Cite from d271828b found here forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f= … 7#p2303175
“I had a professor who talked about a maximal burrito-- it wasn’t the best burrito that could be made, but there was nothing that could be added to that particular burrito to make it better!”
Hope that helps.