exchange

exchange, mutual transfer of goods, money, services, or their equivalents; also the marketplace where such transfer occurs, such as a stock exchange or a commodity exchange. In early human society, exchange of unessential articles, such as jewelry, was common, but no group could afford to rely on another group for the necessities of life. Gradually, division of labor led to the barter economy, in which articles were produced for exchange. Modern capitalistic society, although an outgrowth of the exchange economy, is no longer based on exchange. Strict exchange depends on barter; in modern society the money and price system—in which goods and services are produced in exchange for specified amounts of a standard currency—has largely replaced barter, except for limited arrangements done on a local basis (such as within a town or village). Broadly, the term is now used to signify exchange of goods and services for money. The price of the various factors in exchange is determined by their supply and market demand. Conversion of one country's currency into that of another by means of still others is called arbitrage or arbitration of exchange. The term exchange also refers to the amount of money necessary to buy a given amount in a foreign country, usually for the foreign exchange of goods.

Bibliography

See H. E. Evitt, Exchange and Trade Control in Theory and Practice (4th ed. 1960) and A Manual of Foreign Exchange (7th ed. 1971); E. Sohmen, Flexible Exchange Rates (1961, rev. ed. 1969); S. W. Arndt et al., ed., Exchange Rates, Trade and the U.S. Economy (1985).

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Exchange

See Microsoft Exchange and IXP.

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exchange

1. Commerce

a. the system by which commercial debts between parties in different places are settled by commercial documents, esp bills of exchange, instead of by direct payment of money

b. the percentage or fee charged for accepting payment in this manner

2. Chess the capture by both players of pieces of equal value, usually on consecutive moves

3. win (or lose) the exchange Chess to win (or lose) a rook in return for a bishop or knight

4. Med another word for transfusion

5. Physics a process in which a particle is transferred between two nucleons, such as the transfer of a meson between two nucleons

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exchange [iks‚chānj]

(communications)

A unit established by a telephone company for the administration of telephone service in a specified area, usually a town, a city, or a village and its environs, and consisting of one or more central offices together with the associated plant used in furnishing telephone service in that area. Also known as local exchange.

Room or building equipped so telephone lines terminating there may be interconnected as required; equipment may include a switchboard or automatic switching apparatus.

(computer science)

The interchange of contents between two locations.

(quantum mechanics)

Operation of exchanging the space and spin coordinates in a Schrödinger-Pauli wave function representing two identical particles; this operation must leave the wave function unchanged, except possibly for sign.

Process of exchanging a real or virtual particle between two other particles.