{
  "id": "flow.movement",
  "term": "flow",
  "sense": "movement",
  "pos": "verb",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 3,
  "arena": "E1",
  "domain": "physics",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "Motion of many parts of matter together through one place.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "motion.movement",
      "matter.substance",
      "part.relation",
      "space.extent"
    ],
    "interaction": "Many parts of matter move together through space while maintaining a coherent pattern as a whole.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "collective motion",
      "pattern persistence",
      "spatial continuity"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Gulf Stream carries 1.4 billion cubic meters of seawater per hour from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe.",
      "domain": "physics"
    },
    {
      "text": "Blood flows through the human aorta at about 30 cm/s during systole, transporting oxygen from the heart to tissues.",
      "domain": "biology"
    },
    {
      "text": "The 2023 eruption of Mauna Loa funneled lava flows at speeds up to 1 km/h across 12 square kilometers of terrain.",
      "domain": "geology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "motion.movement",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "flow is collective motion"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "air.material",
    "channel.waterway",
    "connects.verb",
    "current.fluid",
    "device.tool",
    "electrical.electrical",
    "electricity.electrical",
    "fluid.liquid",
    "gas.state",
    "machine.constructed-system",
    "metal.element",
    "plug.electrical",
    "river.watercourse",
    "water.liquid"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "flow",
    "flowed",
    "flowing",
    "flows"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "hand",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 1.0,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "components",
      "note": "Added missing 'space.extent' (L0) as constitutive component since flow inherently involves coordinated movement through space. Removed erroneous reference to non-existent node 'matter.substantance'. D"
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-flow.movement"
}