Damage is any change in a thing, often a physical object, that degrades it away from its initial state. It can broadly be defined as "changes introduced into a system that adversely affect its current or future performance". Damage "does not necessarily imply total loss of system functionality, but rather that the system is no longer operating in its optimal manner". Damage to physical objects is "the progressive physical process by which they break", and includes mechanical stress that weakens a structure, even if this is not visible. Efforts undertaken to prevent or ameliorate damage are often referred to as "damage control".
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👉 Damage in the context of Protection
Protection is any measure taken to guard something against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although the mechanisms for providing protection vary widely, the basic meaning of the term remains the same. This is illustrated by an explanation found in a manual on electrical wiring:
Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage serving exclusively as anti-predator adaptations. Many animals supplement the protection afforded by their physiology by burrowing or otherwise adopting habitats or behaviors that insulate them from potential sources of harm. Humans originally began wearing clothing and building shelters in prehistoric times for protection from the elements. Both humans and animals are also often concerned with the protection of others, with adult animals being particularly inclined to seek to protect their young from elements of nature and from predators.
In this Dossier
Damage in the context of Violence
Violence is characterized as the use of physical force by humans to cause harm to other living beings, such as pain, injury, disablement, death, damage and destruction. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation"; it recognizes the need to include violence not resulting in injury or death.
Damage in the context of Rejuvenation
Rejuvenation is a medical discipline focused on the practical reversal of the aging process.
Rejuvenation is distinct from life extension. Life extension strategies often study the causes of aging and try to oppose those causes to slow aging. Rejuvenation is the reversal of aging and thus requires a different strategy, namely repair of the damage that is associated with aging or replacement of damaged tissue with new tissue. Rejuvenation can be a means of life extension, but most life extension strategies do not involve rejuvenation.
Damage in the context of Kinetic energy weapon
A kinetic energy weapon (also known as kinetic weapon, kinetic energy warhead, kinetic warhead, kinetic projectile, kinetic kill vehicle) is a projectile weapon based solely on a projectile's kinetic energy to inflict damage to a target, instead of using any explosive, incendiary, chemical or radiological payload. All kinetic weapons work by attaining a high flight speed – generally supersonic or even up to hypervelocity – and collide with their targets, converting their kinetic energy and relative impulse into destructive shock waves, heat and cavitation. In kinetic weapons with unpowered flight, the muzzle velocity or launch velocity often determines the effective range and potential damage of the kinetic projectile.
Kinetic weapons are the oldest and most common ranged weapons used in human history, with the projectiles varying from blunt projectiles such as rocks and round shots, pointed missiles such as arrows, bolts, darts, and javelins, to modern tapered high-velocity impactors such as bullets, flechettes, and penetrators. Typical kinetic weapons accelerate their projectiles mechanically (by muscle power, mechanical advantage devices, elastic energy or pneumatics) or chemically (by propellant combustion, as with firearms), but newer technologies are enabling the development of potential weapons using electromagnetically launched projectiles, such as railguns, coilguns and mass drivers. There are also concept weapons that are accelerated by gravity, as in the case of kinetic bombardment weapons designed for space warfare.
Damage in the context of Damage (disambiguation)
Damage is any change to a thing that degrades it from its original state.