Thus the term "wide" has nothing to do with the width across the jam, but actually refers to its length being considerably more than the transition zones at its head and tail. Historically, Kerner used the term "wide" from a qualitative analogy of a wide moving jam in traffic flow with "wide autosolitons" occurring in many systems of natural science (like gas plasma, electron-hole plasma in semiconductors, biological systems, and chemical reactions): Both the wide moving jam and a wide autosoliton exhibit some characteristic features, which do not depend on initial conditions at which these localized patterns have occurred.