Where does resolution collide?

The finest spatial detail an imaging system can distinguish: two points closer together than this limit blur into one, so resolution measures how much real structure the image preserves, not simply how many dots it holds. Lord Rayleigh's 1879 Investigations in optics, with special reference to the spectroscope set out the criterion, now carrying his name, for when two neighbouring points can just be told apart, fixing the limit by the wavelength of light and the aperture of the instrument. The referent is a physical limit on distinguishable detail, set by diffraction and given as an angle or a distance, not a chord relaxing its tension, a formal vote of an assembly, or the closing stage of a story.[1]

Unit

The smallest separation two points can have and still be told apart, in angle or distance

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Derived from the diffraction limit as an angular or linear separation, or reported as line pairs, pixels, or resolvable elements

The movement by which a note or chord that sounds unstable and tense settles onto one that sounds stable and at rest, releasing the tension the dissonance built: a suspended note, for instance, falls to a tone that belongs to the underlying chord, and the ear hears the arrival as repose. Bharucha's 1984 study Anchoring effects in music: The resolution of dissonance examined how listeners hear an unstable tone as pointing toward, and resolving onto, a nearby stable one. The referent is a heard motion from tension to rest inside a piece of music, not a limit on distinguishable detail, a vote of a governing body, or the settling of a plot.[2]

Unit

One move from a dissonant tone or chord to the consonant one that follows it

Recovery means

The tension carried by the dissonance is discharged at the moment of arrival on the stable tone

Measured by

Identified in a score or performance by the progression from a dissonant interval to its expected consonance, and studied through listener ratings of stability

The part of a story that follows the climax, in which the conflicts are worked out, loose threads are tied off, and the action is brought to a close, also called the denouement: it is the phase where tension, having peaked, subsides toward a settled ending. Freytag's 1863 Die Technik des Dramas mapped dramatic structure as a rising and falling arc and named this closing stage in which the outcome is settled. The referent is a structural stage of a plot that resolves its conflicts, not a physical limit on detail, a harmonic arrival, or a vote of an assembly.[3]

Unit

The closing stage of a plot in which its conflicts are settled

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Located in a text as the section after the climax, marked by the settling of conflicts and the tying off of narrative threads