bisection

Everyday

1. (maths) The act of dividing something into two equal parts. tree →
2. (maths, computing) A method of finding an answer by halving a range again and again, as in the bisection method or a binary search. tree →

In the lessons

In geometry lessons: the bisection of an angle or a line with a compass. In maths and coding, the bisection method guesses the middle of a range and keeps the half where the answer must be, like the game «guess my number between 1 and 100».

Examples

• The bisection of the angle gave two angles of 35 degrees. tree →
• We learnt the bisection of a line with a compass. tree →
• Bisection finds the number in just a few guesses. tree →
• Guess 50, then 25, then 37: that is bisection. tree →
• The bisection of the circle makes two semicircles. tree →

Note

Maths: each bisection halves the range: 100 → 50 → 25 → 13 ... so about 7 halvings find any number from 1 to 100. Verb: bisect.