16 résultats pour "optical"
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Telescope - astronomy.
Observatory). In some telescopes designed in the 1990s, the mirror’s weight has been dramatically reduced by sandwiching a honeycomb pattern of glass ribs between a thin, butrigid, concave mirror and a flat back plate. Engineers have even developed meniscus mirrors—mirrors that are too thin to support their own weight. An adjustableframework supports the meniscus mirror, and servomechanical actuators, controlled by computer, continually adjust the shape of the mirror as it tracks celestial tar...
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Computer Memory.
been created, information can be retrieved but not changed. Newer technologies allow ROMs to be semi-permanent—that is, the information can be changed, but ittakes several seconds to make the change. For example, a FLASH memory acts like a ROM because values remain stored in memory, but the values can be changed. C External Memory External memory can generally be classified as either magnetic or optical, or a combination called magneto-optical. A magnetic storage device, such as a computer'shar...
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Observatory - astronomy.
Ultraviolet radiation, X rays, and gamma rays have shorter wavelengths than visible light has. These types of radiation tell astronomers about the hottest and mostviolent phenomena in the universe. Earth’s atmosphere blocks most of this radiation, so astronomers must send their observatories above the atmosphere aboardballoons, rockets, or satellites. Ultraviolet telescopes are much like visible light telescopes, but X-ray telescopes must have special nested cylindrical mirrors to prevent Xrays...
- Op'art ou optical art
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Organic Chemistry - chemistry.
B Alkenes and Alkynes Isomeric with the cyclanes, or cycloalkanes as they are sometimes called, is the family of alkenes, also represented by the general formula C nH2n. This family of hydrocarbons is characterized by one or more double bonds between carbon atoms. Propene and cyclopropane, for example, are isomers, as are 1,3-dimethylcyclohexane and 3,4-dimethyl-2-hexene. (The location of the double bond is indicated by the 2-hexene part of the name.) Double bonds may also occur incyclic compou...
- Op'art - « optical art »
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Galaxy - astronomy.
Astronomers have obtained images of young galaxies using the Keck Telescope in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope, which resides in an orbit high above Earth’satmosphere and thus avoids atmospheric interference. Photos from the HST show galaxies that are as far as 13 billion light-years away from Earth, which means theyformed soon after the universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago. The galaxies appear to be spherical in shape, and may be early precursors of elliptical and spiralgalaxies....
- Op'art ou optical art : mouvement artistique inspiré des travaux de Kandinsky ou de Mondrian, présentant des artistes qui travaillent sur des formes géométriques simples et abstraites.
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Radio Astronomy - astronomy.
equivalent to the apparent angular dimensions of a basketball at the distance of the moon. In 1984, the U.S. government appropriated funds for the construction of aninstallation called the very long baseline array (VLBA), a network of 10 radio antennas spread from the U.S.-Canadian border to Puerto Rico and from Hawaii to the U.S.Atlantic coast. The VLBA is expected to provide angular resolutions in the range of 200-millionths of an arc second. Canada and Australia are both planning similarprogr...
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Optics
I
INTRODUCTION
Mirage
Mirages appear because differences in air temperature cause light rays from an object to take different paths to a viewer's
eye.
Refraction of Light by DiamondsThe brilliance of diamonds is due to their high refractive index, a measure of how strongly a transparent material bendslight rays. The skill of the gem-cutter lies in angling the facets of the stone so that each light ray entering it is reflectedmany times before it emerges again.Spencer Grant/Photo Researchers, Inc. The amount of light reflected depends on the ratio of the refractive indexes for the two media. The plane of incidence contains the incident ray and...
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Nanotechnology.
ever-finer method of reducing material to the nanoscale size. Instead, nanostructures would be assembled atom by atom and molecule by molecule, from the atomiclevel up, just as occurs in nature. However, assembly at this scale has its own challenges. In school, children learn about some of these challenges when they study the random Brownian motion seen in particles suspended in liquids such as water. Theparticles themselves are not moving. Rather, the water molecules that surround the particles...
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Astronomy - astronomy.
Telescopes may use either lenses or mirrors to gather visible light, permitting direct observation or photographic recording of distant objects. Those that use lenses arecalled refracting telescopes, since they use the property of refraction, or bending, of light ( see Optics: Reflection and Refraction ). The largest refracting telescope is the 40-in (1-m) telescope at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, founded in the late 19th century. Lenses bend different colors of light by d...
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X-Ray Astronomy - astronomy.
Some neutron stars have weaker magnetic fields that allow incoming material to settle onto the entire surface of the neutron star. Eventually, so much material buildsup that the surface layer becomes dense enough to set off a vast thermonuclear explosion, called an outburst. The explosion heats gas to produce X rays. Such aneutron star—called an X-ray burster—can increase its X-ray production by a million times during an outburst. The X-ray glow fades over time, and the binary systementers a lon...
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Antarctica - Geography.
The maximum area of sea ice surrounding Antarctica each winter varies from year to year. A marked decline during the 1970s appears to have reversed in more recentdecades, except in the Antarctic Peninsula area. This area has lost almost 40 percent of its sea ice since the start of the 1980s. Sea ice is important to marine life. Krillfeed on algae that live under the sea ice and are released when the ice melts in spring and summer. In turn, many marine animals feed on krill. Emperor penguinsbreed...
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History of Astronomy - astronomy.
Egypt, the Sun was directly overhead at noon. On the same date and time in Alexandria, Egypt, the Sun was about 7 degrees south of zenith. With simple geometryand knowledge of the distance between the two cities, he estimated the circumference of the Earth to be 250,000 stadia. (The stadium was a unit of length, derivedfrom the length of the racetrack in an ancient Greek stadium. We have an approximate idea of how big an ancient Greek stadium was, and based on that approximationEratosthenes was...
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Census.
Prior to any census, a census agency must develop an accurate list of addresses and maps to ensure that everyone is counted. The U.S. Census Bureau obtainsaddresses primarily from the United States Postal Service and from previous census address lists. It also works closely with state, local, and tribal governments tocompile accurate lists. Finally, census agencies often conduct an extensive marketing campaign before Census Day to remind the general population about theimportance of responding t...