Conjugation

The word conjugation has several meanings:

Grammatical conjugation is the modification of a verb from its basic form.
- In the Latin language, different verbs have complex conjugation rules. See Latin conjugation.
In biology, conjugation is sexual reproduction involving interchange of DNA between cells, rather than their fusion. Various forms of conjugation exist in different groups, such as bacteria (see bacterial conjugation) and ciliates.
In mathematics, the term is used in two senses:
- complex conjugation is the operation which multiplies the imaginary part of a complex number by -1.
- if a is an element of a group, then the map f(x) = axa^-1 is called conjugation by a. See inner automorphism, conjugacy class and conjugate closure
In organic chemistry, conjugation is the interaction between two carbon-carbon double bonds, increasing stability and thereby lowering the overall energy of the molecule. The system formed is called a conjugated system.