06600 IUPAC Gold Book - variable 10.1351/goldbook.V06600 V06600 current 1 The quantity or characteristic measured or computed. The corresponding numerical value may be taken for statistical handling; it may, for example, be a measured value or result. Statistical usage employs capital letters for random variables, and lower case for particular or observed values. In circumstances where the choice of '\(x\)' as the symbol may cause confusion, another symbol may be used.See also: dependent and independent variables. PAC, 1994, 66, 595. 'Nomenclature for the presentation of results of chemical analysis (IUPAC Recommendations 1994)' on page 597 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199466030595) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/V06600/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/V06600/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/V06600/plain Citation: 'variable' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.V06600 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-06-28T07:05:17+00:00