Ideal
# Ideal

Ideal may refer to:

## Philosophy

* Ideal (ethics), values that one actively pursues as goals
* Platonic ideal, a philosophical idea of trueness of form, associated with Plato

## Mathematics

* Ideal (ring theory), special subsets of a ring considered in abstract algebra
* Ideal, special subsets of a semigroup
* Ideal (order theory), special kind of lower sets of an order
* Ideal (set theory), a collection of sets regarded as "small" or "negligible"
* Ideal (Lie algebra), a particular subset in a Lie algebra
* Ideal point, a boundary point in hyperbolic geometry
* Ideal triangle, a triangle in hyperbolic geometry whose vertices are ideal points

## Science

* Ideal chain, in science, the simplest model describing a polymer
* Ideal gas law, in physics, governing the pressure of an ideal gas
* Ideal transformer, an electrical transformer having zero resistance and perfect magnetic threading
* Ideal final result, in TRIZ methodology, the best possible solution
* Thought experiment, sometimes called an ideal experiment
* Ideal type, a social science term
* Ideal solution, a solution with thermodynamic properties analogous to those of a mixture of ideal gases

## Entertainment

* Ideal (group), a late-1990s/2000s American R&B group
* Ideal (German band), an early-1980s German rock group
* Ideal (album), a 1999 album by the R&B group Ideal
* An Ideal, a 2016 album by Li Ronghao
* Ideal (novel), a 1934 novel by Ayn Rand, published in 2015
   * Ideal (play), a 1936 play by Ayn Rand, adapted from the novel, published in 1989
* Ideal (TV series), a British situation comedy
* Ideal Film Company, a British film studio of the Silent Era
* Ideal Ice Cream, an ice cream company
* Ideal Toy Company, a defunct toy company

## Places

* Ideal, Georgia
* Ideal, Illinois
* Ideal, South Dakota
* Ideal Mini School

## Miscellaneous

* Changhe Ideal, a city car produced by a joint-venture of Changhe and Suzuki
* Ideal 18, a Canadian sailboat design
* IDEAL Scholars Fund, an American scholarship program for underrepresented students
* Ideal (newspaper), a Spanish-language newspaper
* iDEAL, an online payment method in the Netherlands
* Ideal Industries, an American manufacturer of electrical connectors and tools
* IDEAL framework (Idea, Development, Exploration, Assessment, Long-term study), a framework for describing the stages of innovation in surgery
* IDEAL (Interactive Development Environment for an Application Lifecycle), a development language above COBOL for DATACOM/DB
