This page gathers the 3,177 dictionary entries belonging to the domain “Physics”, as labelled by Wiktionary. Each word leads to its full entry: definitions, etymology, pronunciation, examples. Page 2 of 32: from “alternative universe” to “attenuator”.
- alternative universe noun A hypothetical world situated in a different dimension of space and time than the real world consisting of the universe known and…
- altocumulus noun A fleecy cloud formation consisting of large whitish or greyish globular cloudlets with shaded portions, often grouped in flocks or rows.…
- altostratus noun A principal medium-level cloud type in the form of a gray or bluish (never white) sheet or layer of striated, fibrous, or uniform…
- amagnetic adj nonmagnetic
- amorphous adj In the non-crystalline solid state of, or being a non-crystalline counterpart to, a crystalline solid.
- amorphus noun Any amorphous material
- ampere-hour noun a unit of electric charge, equal to the charge transferred by a current of one ampere in one hour through a specified point in a circuit…
- amplification noun The act, or result of independently increasing some quantity, especially voltage, power or current.
- amplifier noun An appliance or circuit that increases the strength of a weak electrical signal without changing the other characteristics of the signal.
- amplitude noun The maximum absolute value of some quantity that varies.
- amplitude spectroscopy noun The analysis of the energy level structure of a quantum system through its response to driving-field amplitude rather than frequency
- amplitudeology noun A field of quantum physics, that studies scattering amplitudes of quantum particles, and applying mathematical periods to simplifying the…
- anabatic wind noun An upslope wind; usually applied only when the wind is blowing up a hill or mountain as a result of local surface heating and apart from…
- anacoustic adj Describing the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and of space, in which the concentration of molecules is too small to support the…
- analyzer noun a type of polarizer
- anaphoresis noun The movement of electrically charged particles towards an anode.
- anchor pylon noun A pylon that forms the endpoint of a high-power transmission line and uses horizontal insulators, necessary when interfacing with other…
- anentropy noun A measure of the purity or chemical affinity in a thermodynamic system.
- anergy noun Dilute or disorganized energy, which cannot be transformed into work; bound energy
- angle of incidence noun The angle that a straight line, ray of light, etc., meeting a surface, makes with a normal to the surface at the point of meeting.
- angstrom noun A unit of length equal to 10⁻¹⁰ meters (that is, one ten-billionth of a meter), approximately the size of an atom, and denoted by the…
- angular momentum noun The vector product that describes the rotary inertia of a system about an axis and is conserved in a closed system. For an isolated rigid…
- angular velocity noun The angle turned, per unit time, by a body rotating about an axis; the rate of rotation through an angle.
- anisothermal adj Of or pertaining to a system that is not in thermal equilibrium, that does not have a single fixed temperature.
- anisotropy energy noun Energy stored in a ferromagnetic material as a result of the work done by the rotation of its magnetization
- annihilate verb To react with antimatter, producing gamma radiation and (for higher-mass reactants, especially composite particles such as protons) lighter…
- annihilation noun The process of a particle and its corresponding antiparticle combining to produce energy.
- anode noun An electrode, of a cell or other electrically polarized device, through which a positive current of electricity flows inwards (and thus…
- anthroporadiometry noun The measurement of the radiation emitted by all or part of the human body, in order to identify the radionuclides present and to evaluate…
- anti- prefix Composed of antimatter.
- antiatomic adj Of or pertaining to antiatoms.
- antibeauty adj Being or pertaining to an anti-bottom quark (formerly called anti-beauty quark).
- antiblue adj Describing one of the three possible colours of an antiquark, corresponding to blue in a quark.
- anticathode noun The target at which electrons from the cathode in a CRT or x-ray tube are directed.
- anticharm adj Of or pertaining to an anti-charm quark.
- anticolored adj Having an anticolor.
- antiferroelectric adj Describing a state in which dipoles are arranged antiparallel to adjacent ones, resulting in a net zero polarization
- antiferromagnetism noun a phenomenon, similar to ferromagnetism, in which magnetic domains line up in a regular pattern, but with neighbouring electron spins…
- antifield adj Opposed to a field
- antiflow noun Flow in an opposite direction.
- antigravitational adj Acting against gravity.
- antigreen adj One of the three possible colours of an antiquark, corresponding to green in a quark.
- antihydrogen noun The antimatter equivalent of hydrogen, consisting of an antiproton and a positron (antielectron).
- antihyperhydrogen noun The antimatter form of hyperhydrogen; a variant of antimatter hydrogen where the antinucleus contains an antiproton and atleast one…
- antihypertriton noun The antiparticle equivalent of a hypertriton, consisting of an antiproton, an antineutron and any antihyperon
- antilogue adj of or pertaining to the magnetic pole that becomes negative as its temperature increases and positive as its temperature decreases
- antimaterial adj Composed of antimatter.
- antimatter noun Matter that is composed of the antiparticles of those that constitute normal matter.
- antimetric adj The converse of symmetric in electrical network theory, especially filter theory. A network where the input and output image impedances are…
- antimetry noun A property of an electrical network where the normalised impedance of one port is the reciprocal of another.
- antinode noun A region of maximum amplitude situated between adjacent nodes of a vibrating body, such as a string.
- antiparticle noun A subatomic particle corresponding to another particle with the same mass, spin and mean lifetime but with charge, parity, strangeness and…
- antiphase noun A difference in phase (of two waves) of 180°
- antiresonance noun the condition, in an electric circuit containing a capacitor and coil in parallel and in which the alternating current line voltage and the…
- antiscreening noun The property, in some gauge theories, of a strong interaction becoming arbitrarily weak at short distances
- antishadow noun The dampening of subatomic shadow effects due to rescattering.
- antisymmetrized adj Modified by an antisymmetrizer.
- antisymmetrizer noun A linear operator that makes a wave function of N identical fermions antisymmetric under the exchange of the coordinates of any pair of…
- antisynchronization noun The relationship between two oscillating systems that have the same absolute values at all times, but opposite signs
- antitelephone noun A hypothetical device, used in thought experiments on causality, that could be used to send signals into one's own past.
- antitracking adj Resistant to the electrical phenomenon of tracking.
- anyon noun Any particle that obeys a continuum of quantum statistics, only two of which are the standard Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics.
- aperiodic adj That does not have a periodic vibration
- aperture noun A hole which restricts the diameter of the lightpath through one plane in an optical system.
- apex noun The lowest point on a pendant drop of a liquid.
- aplanat noun A lens that has been corrected for spherical aberration and coma in order to produce a rectilinear image.
- apolar adj Having no dipole
- apollonian adj The physical property of material that can resume its shape after being stretched or deformed; elasticity.
- apostilb noun a unit of luminance, being the luminance of a perfectly diffusing surface emitting light at the rate of ¹⁄_π candela per square metre. Also…
- arbiter noun A component in circuitry that allocates scarce resources.
- arc fault noun An undesired and uncontrolled electric arc from one conductor through the air (or other gas) to a conductor at ground potential or a…
- arc-fault circuit interrupter noun A type of circuit breaker that detects signs of potentially-dangerous arcing on downstream wiring and shuts off power to the affected…
- arch noun An architecture; a computer architecture or instruction set architecture.
- archaeomagnetism noun The magnetism of the Earth in the geologic past; the study and measurement of this magnetism in order to date a specimen with iron.
- Archimedes number noun A dimensionless number used to determine the motion of fluids due to density differences, defined as the ratio of gravitational forces to…
- arcover noun The unwanted arcing of electricity from one component to another, caused for example by the presence of contaminants.
- area rule noun A rule stating that an airplane designed with the same cross-sectional area distribution in the longitudinal direction as the Sears-Haack…
- argon-36 noun A rare stable isotope of argon, 3618Ar, having eighteen protons and eighteen neutrons; it amounts to about 0.3% of the element in nature
- argon-38 noun A rare stable isotope of argon, 3818Ar, having eighteen protons and twenty neutrons; it amounts to about 0.06% of the element in nature
- argon-40 noun The major stable isotope of argon, 4018Ar, having eighteen protons and twenty-two neutrons; it amounts to about 99.6% of the element in…
- arrow of time noun The direction of time within a four-dimensional relativistic view of the cosmos.
- Askaryan effect noun The phenomenon whereby a particle traveling faster than the phase velocity of light in a dense dielectric (such as salt, ice or the lunar…
- assert verb To set a signal on a line using a voltage or electric current.
- astable adj Having multiple states, none of which is stable.
- astigmatism noun A defect of a lens such that light rays coming from a point do not meet at a focal point so that the image is blurred.
- astration noun In the galactic cycle of matter, the incorporation of matter into a stellar interior during star formation, especially when referring to a…
- ATM noun Initialism of asynchronous transfer mode.
- atmo noun The standard atmospheric pressure used in certain physical measurements and calculations; conventionally, that pressure under which the…
- atom noun The smallest possible amount of matter which still retains its identity as a chemical element, now known to consist of a nucleus surrounded…
- atomerg noun An indivisible unit of energy, according to a theory of matter put forward by Earle K. Plyler in the 1930s.
- atomic adj Of or relating to atoms; composed of atoms; monatomic.
- atomic absorption spectroscopy noun A quantitative analytical technique in which the content of various elements are measured via their absorption of light
- atomic emission spectroscopy noun A form of analytical spectroscopy that measures the radiation emitted at specific wavelengths by the atoms excited in a very hot sample
- atomic force microscope noun A device used to map the atomic structure of a surface by measuring the force acting on the very fine tip of a wire moved over the surface
- atomic theory noun The theory that all gross matter is composed of atoms.
- atomic weight noun Former term for the more specific relative atomic mass.
- atomtronics noun The design, manufacture and study of analogs of electronics using atoms (especially Bose-Einstein condensates) at low temperature
- attenuate verb To reduce the amplitude of an electrical, radio, or optical signal.
- attenuation noun A reduction in the level of some property with distance, especially the amplitude of a wave or the strength of a signal.
- attenuator noun Any device that attenuates a signal, but especially an electronic device that reduces the amplitude of a signal.