All articles A–Z
519,064 articles
Distortion (music)
Distortion (music): deliberate waveform clipping that adds harmonics to audio, central to rock, metal, and punk. Covers overdrive, distortion, and fuzz, its accidental history from Rocket 88 to Dave Davies, and neural modeling.
Distortion (optics)
Distortion, also called lens distortion or image distortion, is an optical aberration in which magnification varies across the field, rendering straight lines as barrel- or pincushion-shaped curves.
Distracted (album)
Distracted is Thundercat's fifth studio album, released April 3, 2026 on Brainfeeder, his first in six years after It Is What It Is. Produced mainly by Greg Kurstin, it features A$AP Rocky, Tame Impala, WILLOW, Lil Yachty, Channel Tres, and a posthumous Mac Miller verse.
Distracted driving
Distracted driving is operating a vehicle while attention is diverted by secondary activities such as texting, eating, or phone calls, killing 3,208 people in the US in 2024.
Distractibility
Distractibility is difficulty focusing because attention is easily diverted by extraneous stimuli, a nonspecific finding seen in ADHD, mania, and aging, and among people with no disorder.
Distraction osteogenesis
Distraction osteogenesis is a surgical technique that lengthens bone by slowly separating a cut segment with a mechanical device so new bone fills the gap, used for limb lengthening and craniofacial reconstruction.
Distress signal
A distress signal, also known as a distress call, is an internationally recognized means of calling for help, defined by COLREGS Annex IV and including "Mayday" and SOS.
Distria Krasniqi
Distria Krasniqi, Kosovar judoka (born 1995, Pejë), Olympic gold Tokyo 2020 at -48 kg and silver Paris 2024 at -52 kg; four European titles, four Masters golds, coached by Driton Kuka.
Distributary channel
A distributary channel is a stream branch carrying water and sediment away from a main channel rather than adding to it as a tributary does, forming river deltas.
Distributed acoustic sensing
Distributed acoustic sensing, or DAS, also called distributed vibration sensing, is a fiber-optic technique that turns standard optical fiber into a dense array of vibration sensors.
Distributed AI Research Institute
The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) is an independent, globally distributed nonprofit AI research institute founded by Timnit Gebru in December 2021 to study the harms of AI systems, free from big tech funding.
Distributed algorithm
A distributed algorithm is a concurrent algorithm executed by multiple processors that lack shared memory and a common clock, coordinating only by message passing across a network.
Distributed antenna system
A distributed antenna system (DAS) is a network of separate antenna nodes connected to a common signal source, providing wireless service within a building or area.
Distributed beamforming
Distributed beamforming is a cooperative communication technique in which separated radio transmitters align their signal phases so transmissions combine constructively, acting as one phased array.
Distributed Bragg reflector
A distributed Bragg reflector, or Bragg mirror, is a mirror of alternating dielectric layers, each a quarter wavelength thick, whose reflections add constructively at a design wavelength.
Distributed channel allocation
Distributed channel allocation is the assignment of radio frequency channels to wireless transmitters by the nodes themselves, without a central controller, trading optimality for scalability.
Distributed channel estimation
Distributed channel estimation estimates wireless channel state information in networks of geographically separated nodes, such as relay and sensor networks, where destinations learn cascaded channels.
Distributed compressive sensing
Distributed compressive sensing, also called distributed compressed sensing, is an extension of compressed sensing to signal ensembles acquired by multiple sensors, jointly reconstructing them by exploiting inter-signal correlation.
Distributed computing
Distributed computing is a system in which components on networked computers communicate and coordinate by passing messages, letting independent nodes share work and cooperate toward a common result.
Distributed constraint optimization
Distributed constraint optimization (DCOP) is a framework for multi-agent cooperation where agents control parts of a problem's variables and communicate by message passing to optimize a global objective.
Distributed control system
A distributed control system (DCS) is a computerized industrial control system with control distributed among plant controllers, used in oil refining, chemical, power, and water industries since 1975.
Distributed coordination function
The distributed coordination function (DCF) is the mandatory 802.11 Wi-Fi access method, using CSMA/CA with binary exponential backoff, plus an optional RTS/CTS handshake to avoid collisions.
Distributed detection in sensor networks
Distributed detection in sensor networks is an architecture in which each sensor makes a local decision and a fusion center combines them, saving energy and bandwidth.
Distributed estimation in wireless sensor networks
Distributed estimation in wireless sensor networks is the cooperative estimation of a parameter or system state by sensor nodes sharing information with neighbors, without a central unit.
Distributed federated learning over wireless
Distributed federated learning over wireless trains a shared machine learning model across edge devices, with over-the-air (OTA) aggregation letting many devices transmit simultaneously on the same spectrum.
Distributed feedback laser
A distributed feedback (DFB) laser uses a built-in Bragg grating instead of end mirrors to oscillate on a single wavelength, mostly in optical fiber communication.
Distributed fiber optic sensing
Distributed fiber optic sensing is a measurement technique that turns an ordinary optical fiber into thousands of sensors, measuring temperature, strain, or vibration along up to 100 km.
Distributed File System (Microsoft)
Distributed File System (DFS) is a Microsoft Windows Server feature that organizes shared folders across multiple servers into a single logical namespace and keeps folder copies synchronized between servers.
Distributed generation
Distributed generation, also known as distributed or decentralized energy, is the production of electricity at or near the point of use, including rooftop solar and small wind.
Distributed hash table
A distributed hash table (DHT) is a distributed system storing key-value pairs across peer nodes, where any node can efficiently retrieve the value for a given key.