<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<term>
  <id>10107</id>
  <title>principal-component factor</title>
  <longtitle>IUPAC Gold Book - principal-component factor</longtitle>
  <doi>10.1351/goldbook.10107</doi>
  <code>10107</code>
  <status>current</status>
  <initialism><em>initialism</em>: PC</initialism>
  <synonym><em>synonym</em>: principal component</synonym>
  <definitions>
    <item>
      <id>1</id>
      <text>Orthogonal factors obtained in a principal-component analysis.</text>
      <notes>
        <item>The successive factors explain reducing fractions of the variance of the data set, and are written PC1, PC2 …</item>
        <item>ISO 18115 recommends the use of the term "PCA factor".</item>
      </notes>
      <links>
        <item>
          <term>principal-component analysis</term>
          <url>https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10106</url>
        </item>
      </links>
      <sources>
        <item>PAC, 2016, 88, 407. 'Vocabulary of concepts and terms in chemometrics (IUPAC Recommendations 2016)' on page 423 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2015-0605)</item>
      </sources>
    </item>
  </definitions>
  <altoutputs>
    <html>https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/10107/html</html>
    <json>https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/10107/json</json>
    <plain>https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/10107/plain</plain>
  </altoutputs>
  <citation>Citation: 'principal-component factor' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.10107</citation>
  <license>The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.</license>
  <collection>If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .</collection>
  <disclaimer>The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.</disclaimer>
  <accessed>2026-04-18T22:23:32+00:00</accessed>
</term>
