metastable · shallow

held in a position without work, but near a wall, so the thing persists on its own until one small drift crosses and it cannot return.

Metastable (adjective) means: held in a position without work, but near a wall, so the thing persists on its own until one small drift crosses and it cannot return. It emerges from parameter, window, wall, drift: A parameter rests where no maintenance is needed, but the resting place sits near a wall, so a single small drift carries it across where equilibrium far from a wall would have absorbed it. In the EmergenceLexicon it sits at computed level 17, chaining down to the four foundations (space, time, energy, pattern).

Examples

• Supercooled water sits liquid below freezing until a single dust grain gives the crystal somewhere to start, and the whole volume freezes at once. physics
• A company with one customer runs profitably for years without effort spent on sales, until that customer leaves and no pipeline exists to replace them. business
• A friendship maintained by shared circumstance persists effortlessly until one person moves away, and neither had ever built the habit of reaching out. everyday life

Emergence

Chain to foundations

Neighborhood

Concepts that depend on this one above; what it is built from below.

Relations

Provenance