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Similarity is some degree of symmetry in either analogy and resemblance between two or more concepts or objects. The notion of similarity rests either on exact or approximate repetitions of patterns in the compared items. In the case of approximate repetitions we talk about statistical similarity as found in a fractal and its parts. Finding similarities or distinguishing between dissimilarities depends on the faculties of pattern recognition and disambiguation, respectively. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... Sphere symmetry group o. ... Analogy is both the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another particular subject (the target), and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. ... Resemblance may refer to: Resemblance nominalism Ludwig Wittgensteins family resemblances. ... A concept is an abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in language or symbology, that denotes all of the objects in a given category or class of entities, interactions, phenomena, or relationships between them. ... In physics, particularly in quantum physics a system observable is a property of the system state that can be determined by some sequence of physical operations. ... A pattern is a form, template, or model (or, more abstractly, a set of rules) which can be used to make or to generate things or parts of a thing, especially if the things that are generated have enough in common for the underlying pattern to be inferred or discerned... A comparison is an evaluation of similarities and differences - described by Gregory Bateson in his book Mind and Nature as the two quanta of experience. ... The boundary of the Mandelbrot set is a famous example of a fractal. ... Pattern recognition is a field within the area of machine learning. ... Shortcut: WP:D or WP:DAB Disambiguation in Wikipedia and Wikimedia is the process of resolving the conflict that occurs when articles about two or more different topics have the same natural title. ...

Different fields provide differing definitions of similarity:

• In mathematics:
  • Similarity (geometry)
  • Similar matrices
• In psychology, similarity (psychology)
• In music, Musical similarity
• In computational linguistics, semantic similarity
• Natural similarity

In philosophy, similarity is defined as sharing properties. The sky is similar to the sea, for example, because the sky and the sea both share the property of being blue. Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by by Raphael in this detail from The School of Athens. ... // Two geometrical objects are called similar if one is congruent to the result of a uniform scaling (enlarging or shrinking) of the other. ... Several equivalence relations in mathematics are called similarity. ... Psychology (from Greek: ψυχή, psukhē, spirit, soul; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is an academic/ applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. ... In social psychology, similarity refers to how closely attitudes, values, interests and personality match between people. ... For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ... Musical similarity is a certain similarity between two or more musical fragments. ... Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical and logical modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. ... Semantic similarity, variously also called semantic closeness/proximity/nearness, is a concept whereby a set of documents or terms within term lists are assigned a metric based on the likeness of their meaning / semantic content. ... Sphere symmetry group o. ...

This definition has some interesting consequences. First, it follows that resemblance is reflexive, since everything shares its own properties. Second, it follows that resemblance is symmetric, since if x shares properties with y then y shares those same properties with x. Third, qualitative identity turns out to be a limiting case of resemblance, since qualitative identity is defined as sharing all rather than some properties.

See Also:

Chemical Similarity: QSAR World

Similarity Principle: QSAR World

Fingerprint-based Similarity used in QSAR Modeling: QSAR World

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