koherens

Koherens is a Dutch term used to describe the property of coherence: internal consistency, logical relatedness, or a stable, predictable relationship among parts of a system. It is applied across disciplines to indicate that elements fit together in a meaningful or detectable way.

In physics, coherence refers to a fixed phase relationship between waves. Temporal and spatial coherence describe how well a wave maintains a constant phase over time or space. Coherent light, such as that produced by lasers, exhibits high phase stability and allows interference. In quantum mechanics, coherence appears in phenomena where quantum states maintain phase relationships, with coherent states being a particular mathematical description that approximates classical behavior in some systems.

In philosophy, the coherence theory of truth and justification argues that a belief is true or justified if it coheres with a broader system of beliefs. The strength of this approach rests on the overall consistency and mutual support among the beliefs considered.

In linguistics and cognitive science, coherence describes how parts of text or discourse connect to form a unified, understandable whole. Coherence relations—such as cause-effect, elaboration, and parallelism—help readers or listeners follow the intended meaning beyond individual sentences.

In signal processing and related engineering fields, coherence is a measure of the correlation between two signals as a function of frequency. A high coherence indicates a stable, predictable relationship, which is useful for tasks such as signal separation or system identification.

The term derives from Latin cohaerens via French cohérence. Dutch uses koherentie as the noun for coherence, with koherens often functioning as the adjective meaning coherent. See also coherence, coherent state, and coherence theory.