koherence

Koherence is a term used across disciplines to denote the quality of being coherent: internally consistent, logically connected, and mutually supportive. It signals unity within a system of statements, theories, or phenomena. The word is closely related to coherence; in German it appears as Kohärenz and in French as cohérence.

In physics, coherence describes a fixed phase relationship between waves or quantum states. It enables interference and superposition. Coherence can be characterized by measures such as coherence time and coherence length. Decoherence is the process by which environmental interactions destroy coherence, driving systems toward classical behavior.

In philosophy, the coherence theory of truth argues that truth depends on the coherence of a belief with a larger system. Supporters emphasize logical harmony and justification through consistency. Critics note potential circularity and relativism if the system of beliefs is themselves under question.

In linguistics and discourse analysis, coherence refers to the global intelligibility of a text: the perceived unity across sentences and paragraphs. It relies on referential links, lexical cohesion, and discourse relations such as cause, consequence, or contrast. The study of coherence informs models of text generation and evaluation.

In computer science and data analytics, coherence measures appear in topics modeling, text generation, and summarization. Topic coherence assesses how plausibly related the words in a topic are to human interpretation, while text-level coherence gauges the smoothness and logical flow of produced content.

Because Koherence is less common than the generic term coherence, it may occur as a stylized spelling or brand name in specific contexts. When encountered, the intended meaning should be inferred from the accompanying material.