33 résultats pour "physics"
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Physics
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INTRODUCTION
Physics, major science, dealing with the fundamental constituents of the universe, the forces they exert on one another, and the results produced by these forces.
Starting about 1665, at the age of 23, Newton enunciated the principles of mechanics, formulated the law of universal gravitation, separated white light into colors,proposed a theory for the propagation of light, and invented differential and integral calculus. Newton's contributions covered an enormous range of naturalphenomena: He was thus able to show that not only Kepler's laws of planetary motion but also Galileo's discoveries of falling bodies follow a combination of his ownsecond law of m...
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Elementary Particles
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INTRODUCTION
Structure of Matter
Modern physics has revealed successively deeper layers of structure in ordinary matter.
The most fundamental particles that make up matter fall into the fermion category. These fermions cannot be split into anything smaller. The particles that carry theforces acting on matter and antimatter are bosons called force carriers. Force carriers are also fundamental particles, so they cannot be split into anything smaller.These bosons carry the four basic forces in the universe: the electromagnetic, the gravitational, the strong (force that holds the nuclei of atoms together), and the wea...
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Thermodynamics
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INTRODUCTION
Thermodynamics, field of physics that describes and correlates the physical properties of macroscopic systems of matter and energy.
Carnot EngineThe idealized Carnot engine was envisioned by the French physicist Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, who lived during theearly 19th century. The Carnot engine is theoretically perfect, that is, it converts the maximum amount of energy intomechanical work. Carnot showed that the efficiency of any engine depends on the difference between the highest andlowest temperatures reached during one cycle. The greater the difference, the greater the efficiency. An automobileengine, for example, wou...
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Quantum Theory
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INTRODUCTION
Quantum Theory, in physics, description of the particles that make up matter and how they interact with each other and with energy.
electron in the same way a particle with momentum would: It bumps the electron and changes the electron’s path. The light is also affected by the collision as though itwere a particle, in that its energy and momentum changes. Momentum is a quantity that can be defined for all particles. For light particles, or photons, momentum depends on the frequency, or color, of the photon, which in turndepends on the photon’s energy. The energy of a photon is equal to a constant number, called Planck’s cons...
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Heat (physics)
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INTRODUCTION
Heat Loss from a House
A thermograph shows the large amount of heat lost through a house's windows during winter.
Theoretically, the molecules of a substance would exhibit no activity at the temperature termed absolute zero. See Molecule. III TEMPERATURE SCALES Five different temperature scales are in use today: the Celsius scale, known also as the Centigrade scale, the Fahrenheit scale, the Kelvin scale, the Rankine scale, andthe international thermodynamic temperature scale ( see Thermometer). The Celsius scale, with a freezing point of 0° C and a boiling point of 100° C, is widely used throughout the...
- Orbit (astronomy and physics) - astronomy.
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Mechanics
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INTRODUCTION
Mechanics, branch of physics concerning the motions of objects and their response to forces.
Components of VelocityNeglecting air resistance, a ball thrown into the air at an angle will travel in a parabolic path. The velocity of the ball (V)has independent vertical (V) and horizontal (H) components; the horizontal component stays the same the entire time theball is in the air, while the vertical component, the only component affected by gravity, changes continuously while theball is aloft.© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. To understand why and how objects accelerate, force...
- Common Physics Equations.
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Albert Einstein
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INTRODUCTION
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate, best known as the creator of the special and general theories of relativity and for his
bold hypothesis concerning the particle nature of light.
On the basis of the general theory of relativity, Einstein accounted for the previously unexplained variations in the orbital motion of the planets and predicted thebending of starlight in the vicinity of a massive body such as the sun. The confirmation of this latter phenomenon during an eclipse of the sun in 1919 became a mediaevent, and Einstein’s fame spread worldwide. For the rest of his life Einstein devoted considerable time to generalizing his theory even more. His last effort, the unifi...
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Albert Einstein.
On the basis of the general theory of relativity, Einstein accounted for the previously unexplained variations in the orbital motion of the planets and predicted thebending of starlight in the vicinity of a massive body such as the sun. The confirmation of this latter phenomenon during an eclipse of the sun in 1919 became a mediaevent, and Einstein’s fame spread worldwide. For the rest of his life Einstein devoted considerable time to generalizing his theory even more. His last effort, the unifi...
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Galileo
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INTRODUCTION
Galileo (1564-1642), Italian physicist and astronomer who, with German astronomer Johannes Kepler, initiated the scientific revolution that flowered in the work of
English physicist Sir Isaac Newton.
V WORK IN ASTRONOMY During most of his time in Padua, Galileo showed little interest in astronomy, although in 1595 he declared in a letter that he preferred the Copernican theory that Earthrevolves around the Sun to the assumptions of Aristotle and Ptolemy that planets circle a fixed Earth ( see Astronomy: The Copernican Theory ; Ptolemaic System). A Observations with the Telescope In 1609 Galileo heard that a telescope had been invented in Holland. In August of that year he constructed a t...
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Galileo.
V WORK IN ASTRONOMY During most of his time in Padua, Galileo showed little interest in astronomy, although in 1595 he declared in a letter that he preferred the Copernican theory that Earthrevolves around the Sun to the assumptions of Aristotle and Ptolemy that planets circle a fixed Earth ( see Astronomy: The Copernican Theory ; Ptolemaic System). A Observations with the Telescope In 1609 Galileo heard that a telescope had been invented in Holland. In August of that year he constructed a t...
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Electron
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INTRODUCTION
Models of the Atom
Once scientists discovered the electron, they set out to explain how electrons behave in atoms.
Electron Density and Orbital ShapesAtomic orbitals are mathematical descriptions of where the electrons in an atom (or molecule) are most likely to be found.These descriptions are obtained by solving an equation known as the Schrödinger equation, which expresses ourknowledge of the atomic world. As the angular momentum and energy of an electron increases, it tends to reside indifferently shaped orbitals. The orbitals corresponding to the three lowest energy states are s, p, and d, respectively....
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Relativity
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INTRODUCTION
Albert Einstein
In 1905 German-born American physicist Albert Einstein published his first paper outlining the theory of relativity.
in calculating very large distances or very large aggregations of matter. As the quantum theory applies to the very small, so the relativity theory applies to the verylarge. Until 1887 no flaw had appeared in the rapidly developing body of classical physics. In that year, the Michelson-Morley experiment, named after the American physicistAlbert Michelson and the American chemist Edward Williams Morley, was performed. It was an attempt to determine the rate of the motion of the earth through t...
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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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Gravitation
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INTRODUCTION
Gravitation, the force of attraction between all objects that tends to pull them toward one another.
precise observations possible, and Galileo was one of the first to use a telescope to study astronomy. In 1609 Galileo observed that moons orbited the planet Jupiter, afact that could not reasonably fit into an earth-centered model of the heavens. The new heliocentric theory changed scientists' views about the earth's place in the universe and opened the way for new ideas about the forces behind planetarymotion. However, it was not until the late 17th century that Isaac Newton developed a theory...
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Gravitation - astronomy.
precise observations possible, and Galileo was one of the first to use a telescope to study astronomy. In 1609 Galileo observed that moons orbited the planet Jupiter, afact that could not reasonably fit into an earth-centered model of the heavens. The new heliocentric theory changed scientists' views about the earth's place in the universe and opened the way for new ideas about the forces behind planetarymotion. However, it was not until the late 17th century that Isaac Newton developed a theory...
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Jung and Pauli: A Meeting of Rare Minds
JUNG AND PAU\bI A Meeting \bf Rare Minds BY BEVERLEY ZABR\bSK\bE Readers of the Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jungare more familiar with Wolfgang Pauli’s unconscious than with his waking life and achievement. Through Jung’s Psych\bl\bgy and Alchemy—an exposition of “the problem of individuation” and “normal development . . . in a highly intelligent person”—depth psychologists have known the Nobel laureate’s dreams, not his professional genius. Meanwhile, the scientists who continue Pauli’s pur- sui...
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Isaac NewtonIINTRODUCTIONIsaac Newton (1642-1727), English physicist, mathematician, and natural philosopher, considered one of the most important scientists of all time.
B Calculus (Newton’s “Fluxional Method”) In 1669 Newton gave his Trinity mathematics professor Isaac Barrow an important manuscript, which is generally known by its shortened Latin title, De Analysi . This work contained many of Newton’s conclusions about calculus (what Newton called his “fluxional method”). Although the paper was not immediately published, Barrowmade its results known to several of the leading mathematicians of Britain and Europe. This paper established Newton as one of the...
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Isaac Newton.
B Calculus (Newton’s “Fluxional Method”) In 1669 Newton gave his Trinity mathematics professor Isaac Barrow an important manuscript, which is generally known by its shortened Latin title, De Analysi . This work contained many of Newton’s conclusions about calculus (what Newton called his “fluxional method”). Although the paper was not immediately published, Barrowmade its results known to several of the leading mathematicians of Britain and Europe. This paper established Newton as one of the t...
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Encyclopedia of Philosophy: METAPHYSICS (the system of aristotle)
study something as a being is to study something about which true predications can be made, precisely from thepoint of view of the possibility of making true predications of it. Aristotle's first philosopher is not making a study ofsome particular kind of being; he is studying everything, the whole of Being, precisely as such. Now an Aristotelian science is a science of causes, so that the science of Being qua being will be a science whichassigns the causes of there being any truths whatever abo...
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Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de
concerning Human Understanding (1689) by Pierre Coste and read Voltaire's books on Newton. He was the contemporary of such Enlightenment luminaries as Helvetius, Diderot, Buffon, La Mettrie and Holbach. Voltaire and Diderot both expressed the very highest regard for his writings. Condillac was on friendly terms with Rousseau, and was frequently to be seen at the salons in and around Paris where so much of the intellectual activity of the Enlightenment took place. He spent nine years (1758-67...
- Richard Phillips Feynman - biography.
- Enrico Fermi - Biography.
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- LAUE, MAX VON
- Albert Einstein - Biography.
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Bobby Jones Is First Golfer To Win Grand Slam.
so much that the dye from the red tees in his pocket bled onto his pants. Jones opened with a 71 that left him one stroke out of the lead. His second-round 73 could have been much worse had it not been for a “Lily Pad Shot” on the par-five ninth hole. Distracted by a crowd movement in the midst of his second shot, Jones topped the ball and sent it toward the pond guarding the green. Instead ofplopping into the water, the ball skidded over the water like a flat stone and landed on the bank. H...
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Quark
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INTRODUCTION
Quark, smallest known building block of matter.
Constituents of MatterMatter is composed of tiny particles called quarks. Quarks come in six varieties: up (u), down (d), charm (c), strange (s),top (t), and bottom (b). Quarks also have antimatter counterparts called antiquarks (designated by a line over the lettersymbol). Quarks combine to form larger particles called baryons, and quarks and antiquarks combine to form mesons.Protons and neutrons, particles that form the nuclei of atoms, are examples of baryons. Positive and negative kaons aree...
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Atom
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INTRODUCTION
Water Molecule
A water molecule consists of an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, which are attached at an angle of 105°.
spontaneously break apart and change, or decay, into other atoms. Unlike electrons, which are fundamental particles, protons and neutrons are made up of other, smaller particles called quarks. Physicists know of six different quarks.Neutrons and protons are made up of up quarks and down quarks —two of the six different kinds of quarks. The fanciful names of quarks have nothing to do with their properties; the names are simply labels to distinguish one quark from another. Quarks are unique amo...
- Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen - biography.
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Atom - chemistry.
Atoms have several properties that help distinguish one type of atom from another and determine how atoms change under certain conditions. A Atomic Number Each element has a unique number of protons in its atoms. This number is called the atomic number (abbreviated Z). Because atoms are normally electrically neutral,the atomic number also specifies how many electrons an atom will have. The number of electrons, in turn, determines many of the chemical and physical properties ofthe atom. The ligh...
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Cosmology - astronomy.
In 1917 American scientist Harlow Shapley measured the distance to several groups of stars known as globular clusters. He measured these distances by using amethod developed in 1912 by American astronomer Henrietta Leavitt. Leavitt’s method relates distance to variations in brightness of Cepheid variables, a class of starsthat vary periodically in brightness. Shapley’s distance measurements showed that the clusters were centered around a point far from the Sun. The arrangement of theclusters was...
- Midnighters