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In one of my manuals which is an update from a previous version I have the
following sentence:
"Exhaustive skeletonisation will continue to reduce the size of the object
until the medial axis is found; we can therefore say the skeletonisation is
an idempotent operation."
This sentence has been written by a product specialist and although the
word 'idempotent' struck me as odd I didn't query it at the time, thinking
the product specialist knew what he was talking about. However now one of
the proof-readers has queried it,too, and I thought I find out if anyone
knows what it means and if it is used correctly in this context. (I tried
to look it up in a few dictionaries but couldn't find it, so I am not even
sure if it is a real word or just made-up.)
Any ideas?
TIA,
Sybille
Sybille Sterk
Technical Author and Translator (German)
email: sybille -at- wofabgroovy -dot- net
