minimumwaarde

Minimumwaarde is a Dutch term that refers to the smallest value in a set, the lowest value a function attains, or the lowest possible outcome in an optimization problem. It is used across disciplines such as mathematics, statistics, and computer science.

In mathematics, the global minimum of a function f on a domain D is a point x* in D such that f(x*) ≤ f(x) for all x in D. The corresponding value f(x*) is called the global minimum value. If a minimum is found only within a limited neighborhood of a point, the function has a local minimum there, with value f(x*). The existence of a minimum depends on the context; for example, a continuous function on a compact set always attains a global minimum (extreme value theorem), while a function may be bounded below without attaining a minimum.

In statistics and data analysis, the minimum value of a data sample is the smallest observation. It is a simple descriptor of spread when combined with a maximum, but it is sensitive to outliers. Analysts often use alternative measures of dispersion, such as the range, interquartile range, or robust statistics, to mitigate this sensitivity.

In computer science and data processing, minimum operations are common: finding the smallest element in a list or array, or computing the minimum value in a dataset. Algorithms for this task typically run in linear time relative to the number of elements, and the concept of minimum is foundational in optimization problems, including those that seek the smallest possible cost, distance, or energy.

The term minimumwaarde thus denotes the concept of the lowest value encountered or achievable in a given context, and it appears in mathematics, statistics, and computation as a standard reference point for comparison and optimization.