simple arc

noun

, Mathematics.

1. a curve that does not cross itself and has no points missing; a curve that can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the closed interval from 0 to 1.

Example Sentences

Subtracting the story’s occultism, what remains is an elegantly simple arc of pregnancy and postpartum distress as a woman realizes that her husband is vain and duplicitous and her doctor indifferent to her complaints, so that finally “she stopped reacting, stopped mentioning pain … stopped referring to pain even in her thoughts.”

From New York Times

Sometimes a tunnel enters the garnet and comes right back out again in a simple arc.

From Scientific American

As a former denizen of academia and the business world, I’d also point out that the straightforward nature of a flight—takeoff, cruise, landing—lends itself to a blessedly simple arc of job satisfaction.

From Slate

Ponsoldt’s direction veers toward the conventionally bathetic, in exactly the same way that the script veers toward a simple arc of drama.

From The New Yorker

Yes, he wants to get home to his family, but that simple arc would be much more convincing and defined if he weren’t a soldier whose plan for getting home is hitching rides on every military mission that — often quite literally — happens by.

From Forbes