They all seek, in their different ways, to discover abstract categories and connections underlying familiar phenomena.

It is also the modern key idea underlying critical phenomena in condensed matter physics.

A colleague at the university, Dr. Richard Courant, now deceased, once described Dr. John's work as "done on the background of a philosophical desire to help understanding of the mathematical structure underlying natural phenomena."

Collins' award citation noted, "Throughout his research, Collins demonstrates a proclivity for identifying abstract principles that underlie complex biological phenomena and for using these concepts to solve concrete, practical problems."

Spiral waves are believed to underlie phenomena such as tachycardia and fibrillation.

His goal was to understand the statistical laws underlying such phenomena as crime rates, marriage rates or suicide rates.

The mechanisms underlying positive visual phenomena are not yet well understood.

This law of causality is the universal principle underlying all visible and invisible phenomena and events in one's physical and spiritual daily life.

Kenneth Burke (1945) expounded a 'dramatistic approach' to analyse the motives underlying such phenomena as communicative actions and the history of philosophy.

Even if it has not yet been empirically demonstrated, it has been proposed that mirror neurons underlie this behaviour and other imitative phenomena.