1. [n]  finding a solution to a problem
2. [n]  a decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner; "he always wrote down his New Year's resolutions"
3. [n]  the trait of being resolute; firmness of purpose; "his resoluteness carried him through the battle"; "it was his unshakeable resolution to finish the work"
4. [n]  analysis into clear-cut components
5. [n]  something settled or resolved; the outcome of decision making; "the finally reached a settlement with the union"; "they never did achieve a final resolution of their differences"
6. [n]  a formal expression by a meeting; agreed to by a vote
7. [n]  a statement that solves a problem or explains how to solve the problem; "they were trying to find a peaceful solution"; "the answers were in the back of the book"; "he computed the result to four decimal places"
8. [n]  (music) a dissonant chord is followed by a consonant chord
9. [n]  the subsidence of swelling or others signs of inflammation (especially in a lung)
10. [n]  the ability of a microscope or telescope to measure the angular separation of images that are close together
11. [n]  (computer science) the number of pixels per square inch on a computer-generated display; the greater the resolution, the better the picture

Resolution
A New York Times Notable Book for 2002.

more details ...

1. the maximum number of pixels that can be displayed on a monitor, expressed as (number of horizontal pixels) x (number of vertical pixels), i.e., 1024x768. The ratio of horizontal to vertical resolution is usually 4:3, the same as that of conventional television sets.

2. A mechanical method for proving statements of first order logic, introduced by J. A. Robinson in 1965. Resolution is applied to two clauses in a sentence. It eliminates, by unification, a literal that occurs "positive" in one and "negative" in the other to produce a new clause, the resolvent.

For example, given the sentence:

        (man(X) => mortal(X))  AND  man(socrates).

The literal "man(X)" is "negative". The literal "man(socrates)" could be considered to be on the right hand side of the degenerate implication

        True => man(socrates)

and is therefore "positive". The two literals can be unified by the binding X = socrates.

The truth table for the implication function is

        A | B | A => B
        --+---+-------
        F | F |   T
        F | T |   T
        T | F |   F
        T | T |   T

(The implication only fails if its premise is true but its conclusion is false). From this we can see that

        A => B   ==   (NOT A) OR B

Which is why the left hand side of the implication is said to be negative and the right positive. The sentence above could thus be written

        ((NOT man(socrates)) OR mortal(socrates))
        AND
        man(socrates)

Distributing the AND over the OR gives

        ((NOT man(socrates)) AND man(socrates))
        OR
        mortal(socrates) AND man(socrates)

And since (NOT A) AND A == False, and False OR A == A we can simplify to just

        mortal(socrates) AND man(socrates)

So we have proved the new literal, mortal(socrates).

Resolution with backtracking is the basic control mechanism of Prolog.

See also modus ponens, SLD Resolution.

3. address resolution.