Descent
# Descent

Descent may refer to:

## As a noun

### Genealogy and inheritance

* Common descent, concept in evolutionary biology
* Kinship, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology
   * Pedigree chart or family tree
   * Ancestry
   * Lineal descendant
   * Heritage
   * Royal descent - lineal descent from a monarch
* Phylogenetics
   * Tree diagram (disambiguation)
* Inheritance (law and property)

### Mathematics

* Infinite descent, a method going back to Fermat to solve Diophantine equations
* Descent (mathematics), an idea extending the notion of "gluing" in topology
* Hadamard's method of descent, a technique for solving partial differential equations
* Gradient descent, a first-order optimization algorithm going back to Newton
* Descents in permutations, a classical permutation statistic in combinatorics

### Other uses

* Descent (aeronautics), the decrease of an aircraft in altitude during flight
* Descent (font), the distance that a typeface descends below the baseline in typography
* Katabasis

## As a proper name

### Film

* The Descent, a 2005 horror film
   * The Descent Part 2, the 2009 sequel to the 2005 film
* Descent (2007 film), a thriller film starring Rosario Dawson
* Descent (2017 film), a Nigerian film

### Gaming

* Descent (video game), first in a series from Interplay Entertainment and Parallax Software
   * Descent II, sequel to Descent
   * Descent 3, sequel to Descent II
* Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War, a 1998 space combat simulation computer game
* Descent: Journeys in the Dark, a 2005 board game by Fantasy Flight Games
* Dragon Age: Inquisition – The Descent, a 2015 downloadable content pack for Dragon Age: Inquisition

### Literature

* Descent: An Irresistible Tragicomedy of Everyday Life, a 2004 novel by Sabrina Broadbent
* The Descent (novel), by Jeff Long
* Descent (magazine), a magazine about caving
* Descent (journal), a genealogy journal published by the Society of Australian Genealogists

### Music

* Descent, an album by the band This Burning Effigy
* "Descent" (song), a song by Fear Factory from Obsolete
* "Descent", a song by Godflesh from Us and Them
* "Descent", a song by Knut from Bastardiser
* "Descent", a song by Neurosis from Times of Grace
* "A Descent", a song by Born of Osiris from A Higher Place
* "The Descent", a song by Insomnium from Shadows of the Dying Sun (bonus track)
* "The Descent", a song by Polaris from The Death of Me

### Television

* "Descent" (Star Trek: The Next Generation), a two-part 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
* "Descent" (The Outer Limits), a 1999 episode of The Outer Limits
* "Descent" (Stargate SG-1), a 2002 episode of Stargate SG-1
* "The Descent" (The Vampire Diaries), a 2011 episode of The Vampire Diaries
* "Descent", a 2013 episode of NCIS: Los Angeles
