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