hyperfield

English

Etymology

hyper- +‎ field

Noun

hyperfield (plural hyperfields)

1. (mathematics) A field in which the operation of addition is multivalued
2. (anatomy) A region of the visual field that maps to multiple hypercolumns.
   • 1985, David Rose, Vernon G. Dobson, Models of the Visual Cortex, page 185:

     In this model it is assumed that each hemiretina consists of thousands of hemicircular regions called 'hyperfields', arranged in a sunflower seed growth pattern mosaic, which map topographically onto a corresponding square mosaic of regions in the striate cortex called hypercolumns.

   • 2012, Carl Mitcham, Alois Huning, Philosophy and Technology II, →ISBN:

     For example, features such as bars of light of different lengths, widths, intensities, and orientations, moving with different speeds, tend to activate single cells of a hypercolumn whenever the hyperfield is exposed to the corresponding feature.

3. (science fiction) One of various fictional fields in which special physical properties are supported.
   • 2002 -, Peter F. Hamilton -, Misspent Youth:

     It would take a phenomenally advanced technology to create that; but then, as we've all suddenly been granted superhuman powers, quantum hyperfield theory is the least of our problems.

   • 2014, A.A. Attanasio, Arc of the Dream: Radix Tetrad, →ISBN:

     The hyperfield itself could not be moved and remained there on the lava field suspended in the suds of the continuum at the exact point where the arc had entered the inertial frame of the Earth. Unless the titanohematite brain returned to that precise point where the connectionto 5-space waited, the hyperfield would weaken and in a few days smear away in the expansion of the universe.

   • 2015, Joyce Strahn, From Here to Ascension, →ISBN:

     The land was originally seeded for Prima Matra by those we call the 'Timewalkers' in conjunction with High Devas mythologically depicted as Unicorns. When the implosion occurred, the 'seed' material was heated, not only to very high levels, but in a contained hyperfield, which is created by two or more dimensions touching.