Реферат: Физические законы, переменные, принципы

Rydberg formula

A formula which describes all of the characteristics of hydrogen'sspectrum, including the Balmer, Lyman, Paschen, Brackett, andPfund series.

Schroedinger's cat (E. Schroedinger; 1935)

A thought experiment designed to illustrate the counterintuitiveand strange notions of reality that come along with quantummechanics.

A cat is sealed inside a closed box; the cat has ample air,food, and water to survive an extended period. This box isdesigned so that no information (i.e., sight, sound, etc.) canpass into or out of the box -- the cat is totally cut off fromyour observations. Also inside the box with the poor kitty(apparently Schroedinger was not too fond of felines) is a phialof a gaseous poison, and an automatic hammer to break it, floodingthe box and killing the cat. The hammer is hooked up to a Geigercounter; this counter is monitoring a radioactive sample and isdesigned to trigger the hammer -- killing the cat -- should aradioactive decay be detected. The sample is chosen so thatafter, say, one hour, there stands a fifty-fifty chance of a decayoccurring.

The question is, what is the state of the cat after that onehour has elapsed? The intuitive answer is that the cat is eitheralive or dead, but you don't know which until you look. But it is one of them. Quantum mechanics, on the other hands, saysthat the wavefunction describing the cat is in a superposition ofstates: the cat is, in fact, fifty per cent alive and fifty percent dead; it is both. Not until one looks and "collapses thewavefunction" is the Universe forced to choose either a live cator a dead cat and not something in between.

This indicates that observation also seems to be an importantpart of the scientific process -- quite a departure from theabsolutely objective, deterministic way things used to be withNewton.

Schwarzchild radius

The radius that a spherical mass must be compressed to in order totransform it into a black hole; that is, the radius of compressionwhere the escape velocity at the surface would reach lightspeed.

Snell's law; law of refraction

A relation which relates the change in incidence angle of awavefront due to refraction between two different media.

Speed of light in vacuo

One of the postulates of A. Einstein's special theory ofrelativity, which puts forth that the speed of light in vacuum --often written c, and which has the value 299 792 458 m/s -- ismeasured as the same speed to all observers, regardless of theirrelative motion. That is, if I'm travelling at 0.9 c away fromyou, and fire a beam of light in that direction, both you and Iwill independently measure the speed of that beam as c. One of the results of this postulate (one of the predictionsof special relativity is that no massive particle can beaccelerated to (or beyond) lightspeed, and thus the speed of lightalso represents the ultimate cosmic speed limit. Only masslessparticles (photons, gravitons, and possibly neutrinos, should theyindeed prove to be massless) travel at lightspeed, and all otherparticles must travel at slower speeds.

Spin-orbit effect

An effect that causes atomic energy levels to be split becauseelectrons have intrinsic angular momentum (spin) in addition totheir extrinsic orbital angular momentum.

Static limit

The distance from a rotating black hole where no observer canpossibly remain at rest (with respect to the distant stars)because of inertial frame dragging.

Stefan-Boltzmann constant; sigma (Stefan, L. Boltzmann)

The constant of proportionality present in the Stefan-Boltzmannlaw. It is equal to

5.6697 . 10-8 W

m2 . K4 .


Stefan-Boltzmann law (Stefan, L. Boltzmann)

The radiated power (rate of emission of electromagnetic energy) ofa hot body is proportional to the emissivity, an efficiencyrating, the radiating surface area, and the fourth power of thethermodynamic temperature. The constant of proportionality is theStefan-Boltzmann constant.

Stern-Gerlach experiment (O. Stern, W. Gerlach; 1922)

An experiment that demonstrates the features of spin (intrinsicangular momentum) as a distinct entity apart from orbital angularmomentum.

Superconductivity

The phenomena by which, at sufficiently low temperatures, aconductor can conduct charge with zero resistance.

Superfluidity

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