(uncountable, countable) The absolute or relative size, extent or importance of something. / (countable) An order of magnitude.

plural of magnitude

(computing) The convention by which one bit in the representation of a number indicates the numeric sign, while the rest indicate the magnitude.

(astronomy) The intrinsic luminosity that a celestial body would have if viewed from a distance of 10 parsecs or about 32.6 light years.

(astronomy) a numerical measure of the brightness of a star, planet etc.; a decrease of 1 unit represents an increase in the light received by a factor of 2.512

(astronomy) The magnitude of a star as determined by radiometry.

The class of scale or magnitude of any amount, where each class contains values of a fixed ratio (most often 10) to the class preceding it. For example, something that is 2 orders of magnitude larger is 100 times larger, something that is 3 orders of magnitude larger is 1000 times larger, and something that is 6 orders of magnitude larger is a million times larger, because 10² = 100, 10³ = 1000, and 10⁶ = a million.

plural of order of magnitude

(astronomy) The magnitude of a star in terms of the total amount of radiation received at all wavelengths

plural of bolometric magnitude