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 3 of 32: from “attophysics” to “black brane”.
- attophysics noun The branch of physics concerned with dynamic processes that take place with a time resolution of the order of attoseconds
- attractor noun A set of points or states to which a dynamical system evolves after a long enough time. That is, points that get close enough to the…
- Atwood number noun A dimensionless number used in the study of hydrodynamic instabilities in density stratified flows: A=(ρ₁-ρ₂)/(ρ₁+ρ₂), where ρ₁ is the…
- Auger electron noun In some instances of the Auger effect, a second electron that receives the energy of the initial electron and is then ejected from the atom.
- Autler-Townes effect noun A dynamical Stark effect corresponding to the case when an oscillating electric field (e.g., that of a laser) is tuned in resonance (or…
- autobarotropy noun The state of a fluid in which pressure and density surfaces coincide, as a result of a combination of barotropy and piezotropy
- autocorrelator noun A device that modifies a signal with a delayed copy of itself in order to detect any periodic signal hidden in the noise
- autodynamics noun A discredited theory proposed by Ricardo Carezani in the early 1940s as a replacement for Einstein's theories of special relativity and…
- autofocus noun A feature of some cameras and other optical systems that allows a correct focus on the subject to be obtained automatically
- autophoresis noun The spontaneous movement of particles in a suspension caused by nonlinear interplay between surface osmotic flows and solute advection
- autopolarity noun Automatic interchanging of connections to a digital meter when polarity is wrong; a minus sign appears ahead of the value on the digital…
- autosoliton noun A dissipative soliton; a stable solitary localized structure that arises in nonlinear spatially extended dissipative systems due to…
- autozeroing noun A sampling technique that measures an offset from zero and later compensates by subtracting the difference.
- avalanche effect noun The rapid increase in the number of free electrons in a gas subjected to a strong electric field.
- axial lead noun An electrical component with two leads (wires) extending out in opposite directions (along a single axis).
- axial point noun nodal point
- axino noun A hypothetical elementary particle, the fermionic superpartner of the axion and a possible candidate for the composition of dark matter.
- axion noun A hypothetical subatomic particle postulated to resolve certain symmetry problems concerning the strong nuclear force.
- axion-like particle noun A hypothetical light boson that behaves somewhat like the axion but does not need to satisfy the axion's original theoretical constraints.
- axipetal adj Tending toward the center or axis
- azeotrope noun A mixture of two or more substances whose liquid and gaseous forms have the same composition (at a certain pressure); the substances cannot…
- b symbol barn
- Babinet's principle noun A principle that states that the diffraction pattern from an opaque body is identical to that from a hole of the same size and shape except…
- back to back adj Emerging in exactly opposite directions.
- backgate noun A gate that supplies a negative voltage.
- background noun Ellipsis of background radiation.
- background radiation equivalent time noun A unit of measurement of ionizing radiation dosage amounting to one day worth of average human exposure to background radiation.
- backplane noun A circuit board that connects several connectors in parallel to each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same…
- backpressure noun Pressure that is opposed to the desired flow of a fluid (through a duct).
- backscatter noun The deflection of particles or radiation through angles greater than 90 degrees to the original direction of travel.
- Bagnold number noun The ratio of grain collision stresses to viscous fluid stresses in a granular flow with interstitial Newtonian fluid: Ba=(ρd²λ^(1/2)̇γ)/μ…
- ball noun A jacketed non-expanding bullet, typically of military origin.
- ballast noun device used for stabilizing current in an electric circuit (e.g. in a tube lamp supply circuit)
- ballistics noun The science of objects that predominantly fly under the effects of gravity, momentum and atmospheric drag, and dealing with details of…
- Balmer series noun The set of spectral lines of the hydrogen atom that correspond to transitions involving a principal quantum number n=2
- band noun A part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
- band spectrum noun An absorption or emission spectrum consisting of bands of closely-spaced lines; characteristic of polyatomic molecules.
- bandgap noun The energy difference between two allowed ranges of electron energy in a solid; especially the difference between the energies of the…
- bandlimiting noun The limiting of a signal's Fourier transform or power spectral density to zero above a certain finite frequency.
- bandreject adj (of a filter, circuit, or system) Rejecting or attenuating a specific range of frequencies while passing those above and below.
- bar noun A similar sign indicating that the charge on a particle is the negative of its usual value (and that consequently the particle is in fact…
- Barkhausen effect noun The phenomenon where noise is generated in the magnetic output of a ferromagnet after the magnetizing force applied to it is changed.
- barlow noun A Barlow lens.
- Barlow lens noun A diverging lens which, used in series with other optics in an optical system, increases the effective focal length of an optical system as…
- barnacle noun On printed circuit boards, a change such as soldering a wire in order to connect two points, or addition such as an added resistor or…
- barology noun The science of gravity or weight.
- barometric pressure noun The downward force of the atmosphere onto the Earth; at sea level a unit of air pressure is one atmosphere, air pressure decreases as the…
- barycenter noun The center of a mass; often specifically, the point at which the gravitational forces exerted by two objects are equal
- barycentre noun The point at the centre of a system; an average point, weighted according to mass or other attribute. The term is usually used in astronomy…
- barye noun A unit of pressure under the CGS system; symbol Ba; equal to 1 dyne per square centimeter. 1 Ba = 0.1 Pa = 0.1 N/m2 = 1x10⁻⁶ bar.
- baryon noun A heavy subatomic particle created by the binding of quarks by gluons; a hadron containing three quarks. Baryons have half-odd integral…
- baryon number noun A quantum number related to the difference between the numbers of quarks and antiquarks in a system of subatomic particles
- baryonium noun A particle-like resonance preferentially coupled to baryon-antibaryon channels. It is described either as a baryon-antibaryon compound or…
- base noun The name of the controlling terminal of a bipolar transistor (BJT).
- baseband noun A device using baseband transmission.
- basin of attraction noun Informally, a set of points from which a dynamical system spontaneously moves to a particular attractor.
- battery noun A device used to power electric devices, consisting of one or more electrically connected electrochemical cells or (archaically)…
- battery pack noun A set of batteries or battery cells connected together to deliver a certain voltage, capacity, or power density, often with an integrated…
- battery-backed adj Of a device, using a battery to maintain operation when not powered by the main electrical supply (e.g. during a blackout).
- Bazin's formula noun An equation used to calculate the flow velocity of a fluid in an open-channel system, relating Chezy's coefficient to variables such as…
- BB noun Initialism of baseband.
- beam noun A ray or collection of approximately parallel rays emitted from the sun or other luminous body.
- beamforming noun A technique by which the phase and amplitude of transmitted signals are modified, by a feedback process, in order to improve transmission…
- beamstrahlung noun The radiation from one beam of charged particles in a storage ring or linear collider caused by its interaction with the electromagnetic…
- beamtime noun The amount of time allocated to a researcher for use of a beam of particles from a particular source.
- beauty noun A beauty quark (now called bottom quark).
- bed of nails noun A device for testing a chip, consisting of an array of spring-loaded pins.
- Bejan number noun A dimensionless number: the ratio of heat transfer irreversibility to total irreversibility due to heat transfer and fluid friction…
- Bekenstein bound noun An upper limit on the thermodynamic entropy, or Shannon entropy, that can be contained within a given finite region of space which has a…
- belted cable noun A 3-phase power cable whose conductors are bunched together and isolated with oil-impregnated insulating paper.
- beta noun A beta particle or beta ray.
- BFC noun big fucking capacitor - a high-voltage film capacitor suitable for use in power transmission, electric motor starters and applications…
- bias verb To give a bias to.
- biased adj On which an electrical bias is applied.
- biaswise adv In terms of bias.
- bichromatic adj Describing a spectrometer (or similar instrument or system) capable of analysing two wavelengths at the same time.
- bicontinuous adj Being a continuous phase composed of two immiscible liquids interacting through rapidly changing hydrogen bonds
- bifocal adj Having two focal lengths.
- bifocus adj Produced by stereoscopic lenses
- bilinear adj Of or pertaining to a Möbius transformation (type of conformal map representable as the ratio of two linear functions).
- binding energy noun The energy needed to separate the constituent parts of an atom or nucleus; equivalent to the mass defect.
- bino noun The superpartner of the gauge boson corresponding to weak hypercharge. The W and Z bosons are electroweakinos: winos and binos.
- bioconvection noun The motion of large numbers of small organisms in a fluid, especially free-swimming zooplankton in water
- bioelectronics noun The application of electronics in the field of biology
- bioenergetics noun The study of the energy transformations that take place in living organisms.
- biomechanics noun The branch of biophysics that deals with the mechanics of the human or animal body; especially concerned with muscles and the skeleton.
- biophilic adj Whose values are critical to the evolution of life in the universe.
- biot noun Synonym of abampere.
- bipolar adj Relating to a bipole.
- bipolaron noun A bound pair of two polarons
- bipole noun A region of magnetic flux having two distinct poles
- biprism noun An optical device of this construction used to generate interference fringes.
- birdie noun An electromagnetic signal generated from within an electronic device.
- birefringence noun The splitting of a ray of light into two parallel rays of perpendicular polarization by passage through an optically anisotropic medium…
- bistable noun A flip-flop.
- bistatic adj Describing reflection of a ray from an object both directly back to the origin of the ray, and also at an angle
- bitline noun An array of columns of memory cells in random access memory, used with the wordline to generate the address of each cell.
- Bjerrum length noun The separation at which the electrostatic interaction between two elementary charges is comparable in magnitude to the thermal energy scale.
- black body noun Alternative form of blackbody.
- black brane noun A higher-dimensional generalization of a black hole, where the event horizon is not spherical but rather extended.