physical surface
Sign in to savethumb|right|The surface of an apple has various perceptible characteristics, such as curvature, smoothness, texture, color, and shininess; observing these characteristics by sight or touch allows the object to be identified. thumb|right|Water droplet lying on a [[damask. Surface tension is high enough to prevent it passing through the textile.]] thumb|right|The Sun, like all stars, appears from a distance to have a distinct surface, but on closer approach has no set surface. A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object. It is the porti
Article
5 sectionsContents
- Perception of surfaces
- In mathematics
- In the physical sciences{{anchor|In physics}}
- In computer graphics
- References
thumb|right|The surface of an apple has various perceptible characteristics, such as curvature, smoothness, texture, color, and shininess; observing these characteristics by sight or touch allows the object to be identified. thumb|right|Water droplet lying on a [[damask. Surface tension is high enough to prevent it passing through the textile.]] thumb|right|The Sun, like all stars, appears from a distance to have a distinct surface, but on closer approach has no set surface. A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be observed and with which other objects first interact.
The concept of surface has been abstracted and formalized in mathematics, specifically in geometry. Depending on the properties on which the emphasis is given, there are several inequivalent such formalizations that are all called surface, sometimes with a qualifier such as algebraic surface, smooth surface or fractal surface.