Ruby

ruby

1. a deep red transparent precious variety of corundum: occurs naturally in Myanmar and Sri Lanka but is also synthesized. It is used as a gemstone, in lasers, and for bearings and rollers in watchmaking. Formula: Al₂O₃

2. the deep-red colour of a ruby

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

What does it mean when you dream about a ruby?

A gemstone that varies from light pink to deep red, the ruby represents passion, the life force, and prosperity. The deeper and more intense the color, the more precious and expensive the stone.

The Dream Encyclopedia, Second Edition © 2009 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.

ruby

[′rü·bē]

(mineralogy)

The red variety of the mineral corundum; in its finest quality, the most valuable of gemstones.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

ruby

July. [Am. Gem Symbolism: Kunz, 319–320]

See: Birthstones

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ruby

represents intensity of feeling; July birthstone. [Gem Symbolism: Kunz, 28, 319]

See: Passion, Sensual

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Ruby

(language)

1. A relational language designed by Jones and M. Sheeran in 1986 for describing and designing circuits (a hardware description language). Ruby programs denote binary relations and programs are built-up inductively from primitive relations using a pre-defined set of relational operators. Ruby programs also have a geometric interpretation as networks of primitive relations connected by wires, which is important when layout is considered in circuit design.

Ruby has been continually developed since 1986, and has been used to design many different kinds of circuits, including systolic arrays, butterfly networks and arithmetic circuits.

ftp://ftp.cs.chalmers.se/pub/misc/ruby/.

E-mail: <graham@cs.chalmers.se>.

["Ruby - A Language of Relations and Higher-Order Functions", M. Sheeran, Proc 3rd Banff Workshop on Hardware Verification, Springer 1990].

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

Ruby

An interpreted, object-oriented programming language that is somewhat similar to Perl in syntax. Known for its easy manipulation of text strings, everything in Ruby is an object, including primitive elements. Ruby programs and libraries are distributed in Ruby's "gem" format using the RubyGems package manager. JRuby is a Ruby implementation written in Java, and eRuby is an embedded version.

Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails (RoR) is an open source application framework for Ruby that is widely used for writing Web applications.

Rubies and Pearls
Written by Yukihiro Matsumoto and introduced in 1995, Ruby was named after the July birthstone that followed the Pearl birthstone of June. The design goal for Ruby was to create a language that was more intuitive for the programmer than previous languages. For more information, visit www.ruby-lang.org.

IronRuby
IronRuby (Implementation Running on .NET Ruby) is an open source version for the .NET platform. The source code is available under Microsoft's Public License. See .NET.

Copyright © 1981-2025 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Ruby

 

(Late Latin rubinus, from the Latin rubeus, “red”), a variety of the mineral corundum (Al₂O₃) distinguished by the replacement of Al³⁺ ions by Cr³⁺ ions (from hundredths of a percent to 2 percent). The quantum transitions between the energy levels of the Cr³⁺ ions split by the crystal field give rise to the ruby’s red color (in contrast to the lack of color of corundum). The laser emission of ruby in the red part of the visible spectrum is related to the transitions between various levels of the Cr³⁺ ions, while the action of ruby as a quantum mechanical amplifier of radio waves (maser) is related to transitions between spin states.

The ruby is a precious stone of order I. In the USSR, rubies occur in alluvial deposits in the Central and Southern Urals. Outside the Soviet Union, there are important industrial deposits in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.

Synthetic rubies, obtained by the same process as that used for corundum (but with the addition of Cr₂O₃), are used in the jewelry and watchmaking industries. They also find use in quantum electronics as the active element of the maser and of the most common solid-state laser, which gives record energies and powers as well as giant pulses.

REFERENCES

Mineraly: Spravochnik, vol. 2. Moscow, 1965.
Rubinisapfir. Moscow, 1974.

A. S. MARFUNIN

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.