What is dissipation constant?

Famous quotes containing the words dissipation and/or constant:

    The more specific idea of evolution now reached is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.
    Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)

    The tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.
    Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)