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Vinony

metastability

noun

  1. stable state of a dynamical system other than the system's state of least energy
L323866 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *me Proto-Indo-European *meth₂? Ancient Greek μετᾰ́ (metắ) Ancient Greek μετᾰ- (metă-)lbor. English meta- English stability English metastability From meta- + stability.

  1. An unstable but potentially long-lived state of a system; for example, a supersaturated solution or an excited atom.

    “Soloman's belief that love is necessarily paradoxical issues from his attempt to define it as what Sartre would call a dialectical metastability. Love must therefore be not a "state of the union but a never ending conflict of pushing away and pulling together."”