A discriminant is a quantity (usually invariant under certain classes of transformations) which characterizes certain properties of a quantity's roots. The concept of the discriminant is used for binary quadratic forms, elliptic curves, metrics, modules, polynomials, quadratic curves, quadratic fields, quadratic forms, and in the second derivative test.
Discriminant
See also
Binary Quadratic Form Discriminant, Circle Discriminant, Conic Section Discriminant, Determinant, Discriminant Analysis, Elliptic Discriminant, Metric Discriminant, Modular Discriminant, Polynomial Discriminant, Quadratic Curve Discriminant, Second Derivative Test DiscriminantExplore with Wolfram|Alpha
Cite this as:
Weisstein, Eric W. "Discriminant." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Discriminant.html