Mechanics
This principle, derived from the conservation of energy, explains why the static pressure of an incompressible fluid decreases as its velocity increases.
What is Bernoulli's Principle?
For an ideal gas, the difference between the molar heat capacity at constant pressure C_p and constant volume C_v is always equal to this universal constant.
What is the ideal gas constant (R)?
The angle of incidence at which light with a particular polarization is perfectly transmitted through a transparent dielectric surface.
What is Brewster's Angle?
Pictorial representations using lines and vertices to describe the mathematical behaviour of subatomic particles.
What is a Feynman Diagram?
An operator corresponding to the total energy of a quantum system.
What is the Hamiltonian?
The fifth derivative of position.
What is crackle
Type of property in thermodynamics that are macroscopic behaviors and characteristics (e.g., temperature, pressure, entropy, phase transitions) that arise solely from the collective, interactive behavior of large numbers of microscopic particles
What is an emergent property?
Electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through a dielectric medium faster than light travels in that medium.
What is Cherenkov Radiation?
The fundamental gauge bosons that mediate the weak interaction, specifically responsible for radioactive beta decay.
What are the W and Z bosons?
Abstract mathematical structure that generalizes the concept of Euclidean space to potentially infinite dimensions.
What is Hilbert Space?
Kepler's Third Law states that the square of the orbital period is proportional to this geometric feature cubed (even for elliptical orbits)
What is the semi-major axis?
For an ideal monatomic gas, the internal energy is purely kinetic. If the absolute temperature of the gas is tripled, this is the exact factor by which the root-mean-square (rms) speed of the molecules increases.
What is the square root of 3?
A general relativity phenomenon where electromagnetic radiation loses energy and its wavelength stretches when traveling out of a gravitational well
What is gravitational redshift?
Narrow, string-like regions of high-intensity gluon fields that connect quarks within hadrons (protons/neutrons), acting as the physical manifestation of the strong force's colour confinement
What is a (colour) flux tube?
A dimensionless physical constant, approximately 1/137, characterising the strength of the electromagnetic interaction.
What is the Fine Structure Constant?
For any given planet, this is the exact numerical ratio between the escape velocity from the surface and the velocity required to maintain a circular orbit at that same surface radius.
What is the square root of 2 (1.41...)?
While an ideal monatomic gas has a molar internal energy, an ideal diatomic gas at room temperature has an internal energy because it possesses these two additional "modes" of kinetic energy storage.
What is a degree of freedom?
A method that detects exoplanets by measuring the "wobble" of a star caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet.
What is the radial velocity method?
The discrepancy in the number of neutrinos detected from the Sun and those predicted by solar models (solved by neutrino oscillation).
What is the Solar Neutrino Problem?
The theoretical long-term average outcome of a random process repeated many times, calculated by multiplying each possible result by its probability and summing these products.
What is the expectation value?
Kepler’s Second Law (equal areas in equal times) is actually a macroscopic consequence of the conservation of this specific vector quantity.
What is angular momentum?
The solution to Maxwell's demon, which proposed a way to violate the second law of thermodynamics, lies in this specific property of the demon's memory.
What is information entropy?
An optical property where a material—typically an anisotropic crystal or polymer—splits a single light ray into two, causing them to travel at different velocities and directions.
What is birefringence?
The discovery that the laws of physics are not quite the same if a particle is interchanged with its antiparticle (Charge conjugation) while its spatial coordinates are inverted (Parity).
What is CP violation?
A mathematical formula that, when violated by experimental results, proves that quantum mechanics cannot be explained by local hidden variable theories, reinforcing non-locality.
What is Bell's Inequality?