A circular reference, which is something that refers to itself causing an infinite loop, can be manifested in several different ways. This happens most frequently in spreadsheets where a formula mistakenly gets entered in with a value which says to manipulate the cell this forumla occupies. Since it refers to itself, which is just the formula, there is no way the formula can be evaluated. It can happen in programming code where an object, when created, inherently creates a copy of itself, which then creates a copy of itself, at infinitum. It's the same type of phenomenon when you point a camera at a mirror and the image seems to stretch out to infinity. Because the image never stops looking at itself, it can be called a circular reference, which is something that refers to itself causing an infinite loop, can be manifested in several different ways. This happens most frequently in spreadsheets where a formula mistakenly gets entered in with a value which says to manipulate the cell this forumla occupies. Since it refers to itself, which is just the formula, there is no way the formula can be evaluated. It can happen in programming code where an object, when created, inherently creates a copy of itself, which then creates a copy of itself, at infinitum. It's the same type of phenomenon when you point a camera at a mirror and the image seems to stretch out to infinity. Because the image never stops looking at itself, it can be called a circular reference, which is something that refers to itself causing an infinite loop, can be manifested in several different ways. This happens most frequently in spreadsheets where a formula mistakenly gets entered in with a value which says to manipulate the cell this forumla occupies. Since it refers to itself, which is just the formula, there is no way the formula can be evaluated. It can happen in programming code where an object, when created, inherently creates a copy of itself, which then creates a copy of itself, at infinitum. It's the same type of phenomenon when you point a camera at a mirror and the image seems to stretch out to infinity. Because the image never stops looking at itself, it can be called a circular reference, which is something that refers to itself causing an infinite loop, can be manifested in several different ways. This happens most frequently in spreadsheets where a formula mistakenly gets entered in with a value which says to manipulate the cell this forumla occupies. Since it refers to itself, which is just the formula, there is no way the formula can be evaluated. It can happen in programming code where an object, when created, inherently creates a copy of itself, which then creates a copy of itself, at infinitum. It's the same type of phenomenon when you point a camera at a mirror and the image seems to stretch out to infinity. Because the image never stops looking at itself, it can be called a circular reference; to break one of these you have to either make it not reference itself or allow a change in pattern to have the infinite sequence stop.
