überlappung

Überlappung, literally “overlap” in German, is a generic term used across disciplines to denote the part of one object that coincides with another, or the extent to which two or more entities share common space, time, or characteristics. The precise meaning depends on context, ranging from a geometric intersection to a statistical similarity measure.

In mathematics, the overlap of sets A and B is their intersection, A ∩ B, the elements common to both. In probability, the overlap of events E and F refers to E ∩ F and is quantified by P(E ∩ F). The overlap coefficient is a similarity metric often defined as P(E ∩ F)/min(P(E), P(F)).

Applications abound. In geometry, two shapes overlap when their interiors intersect. In statistics and data visualization, shading in Venn diagrams or overlapping histograms signals shared regions. In linguistics or genomics, overlap describes shared features or gene overlaps in a genome. In scheduling and computer science, overlap indicates concurrent use of time intervals or resources, which can require synchronization or conflict resolution. In signal processing, overlap between signals or spectra affects reconstruction and filtering.

The term also appears in physics, ecology, and other fields to describe partial coincidence or shared domains, whether spatial, temporal, or conceptual. Überlappung thus denotes a region or extent of commonality that is identified and measured within a given framework.