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Stoney Units
In physics the Stoney units form a system of units named after the Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney, who first proposed them in 1881. They are the earliest example of natural units, i.e., a coherent set of units of measurement designed so that chosen physical constants fully define and are included in the set. Units The constants that Stoney used to define his set of units is the following: * ''c'', the speed of light in a vacuum, * ''G'', the gravitational constant, * ''k''e = 1/(4''πε''0), the Coulomb constant, * ''e'', the elementary charge. This means that the numerical values of all these constants, when expressed in coherent Stoney units, is equal one: : ''c'' = 1 ''l''S⋅''t''S−1 :''G'' = 1 ''l''S3⋅''t''S−2⋅''m''S−1 :''k''e = 1 ''l''S3⋅''t''S−2⋅''m''S⋅''q''S−2 :''e'' = 1 ''q''S In Stoney units, the numerical value of the reduced Planck constant is :\hbar = \frac ~l_\text^2t_\text^m_\text \approx 137.036 ~l_\text^2t_\text^m_\text^, where '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avogadro Constant
The Avogadro constant, commonly denoted or , is the proportionality factor that relates the number of constituent particles (usually molecules, atoms or ions) in a sample with the amount of substance in that sample. It is an SI defining constant with an exact value of . It is named after the Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro by Stanislao Cannizzaro, who explained this number four years after Avogadro's death while at the Karlsruhe Congress in 1860. The numeric value of the Avogadro constant expressed in reciprocal moles, a dimensionless number, is called the Avogadro number. In older literature, the Avogadro number is denoted or , which is the number of particles that are contained in one mole, exactly . The Avogadro number is the approximate number of nucleons (protons or neutrons) in one gram of ordinary matter. The value of the Avogadro constant was chosen so that the mass of one mole of a chemical compound, in grams, is approximately the number of nucleons in one cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Units
In physics, natural units are physical units of measurement in which only universal physical constants are used as defining constants, such that each of these constants acts as a Coherence (units of measurement), coherent unit of a quantity. For example, the elementary charge may be used as a natural unit of electric charge, and the speed of light may be used as a natural unit of speed. A purely natural system of units has all of its units defined such that each of these can be expressed as a product of powers of defining physical constants. Through nondimensionalization, physical quantities may then redefined so that the defining constants can be omitted from mathematical expressions of physical laws, and while this has the apparent advantage of simplicity, it may entail a loss of clarity due to the loss of information for dimensional analysis. It precludes the interpretation of an expression in terms of constants, such as and , unless it is ''known'' which units (in dimensionf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dimensional Analysis
In engineering and science, dimensional analysis is the analysis of the relationships between different physical quantities by identifying their base quantities (such as length, mass, time, and electric current) and units of measure (such as miles vs. kilometres, or pounds vs. kilograms) and tracking these dimensions as calculations or comparisons are performed. The conversion of units from one dimensional unit to another is often easier within the metric or the SI than in others, due to the regular 10-base in all units. ''Commensurable'' physical quantities are of the same kind and have the same dimension, and can be directly compared to each other, even if they are expressed in differing units of measure, e.g. yards and metres, pounds (mass) and kilograms, seconds and years. ''Incommensurable'' physical quantities are of different kinds and have different dimensions, and can not be directly compared to each other, no matter what units they are expressed in, e.g. metres and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirac Large Numbers Hypothesis
The Dirac large numbers hypothesis (LNH) is an observation made by Paul Dirac in 1937 relating ratios of size scales in the Universe to that of force scales. The ratios constitute very large, dimensionless numbers: some 40 orders of magnitude in the present cosmological epoch. According to Dirac's hypothesis, the apparent similarity of these ratios might not be a mere coincidence but instead could imply a cosmology with these unusual features: *The strength of gravity, as represented by the gravitational constant, is inversely proportional to the age of the universe: G \propto 1/t\, *The mass of the universe is proportional to the square of the universe's age: M \propto t^2. *Physical constants are actually not constant. Their values depend on the age of the Universe. Background LNH was Dirac's personal response to a set of large number "coincidences" that had intrigued other theorists of his time. The "coincidences" began with Hermann Weyl (1919), who speculated that the obse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Weyl
Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, (; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland, and then Princeton, New Jersey, he is associated with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by Carl Friedrich Gauss, David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski. His research has had major significance for theoretical physics as well as purely mathematical disciplines such as number theory. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century, and an important member of the Institute for Advanced Study during its early years. Weyl contributed to an exceptionally wide range of mathematical fields, including works on space, time, matter, philosophy, logic, symmetry and the history of mathematics. He was one of the first to conceive of combining general relativity with the laws of electromagnetism. Freeman Dyson wrote that Weyl alone bore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unified Theory
In physics, a unified field theory (UFT) is a type of field theory that allows all that is usually thought of as fundamental forces and elementary particles to be written in terms of a pair of physical and virtual fields. According to the modern discoveries in physics, forces are not transmitted directly between interacting objects but instead are described and interrupted by intermediary entities called fields. Classically, however, a duality of the fields is combined into a single physical field. For over a century, unified field theory has remained an open line of research and the term was coined by Albert Einstein, who attempted to unify his general theory of relativity with electromagnetism. The "Theory of Everything" and Grand Unified Theory are closely related to unified field theory, but differ by not requiring the basis of nature to be fields, and often by attempting to explain physical constants of nature. Earlier attempts based on classical physics are described in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
String Theory
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity. String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances to mathematical physics, which have been applied to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and conde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Gravity
Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vicinity of black holes or similar compact astrophysical objects, such as neutron stars. Three of the four fundamental forces of physics are described within the framework of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. The current understanding of the fourth force, gravity, is based on Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which is formulated within the entirely different framework of classical physics. However, that description is incomplete: describing the gravitational field of a black hole in the general theory of relativity leads physical quantities, such as the spacetime curvature, to diverge at the center of the black hole. This signals the breakdown of the general theory of relativity and the need for a theory that goes b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reduced Planck Constant
The Planck constant, or Planck's constant, is a fundamental physical constant of foundational importance in quantum mechanics. The constant gives the relationship between the energy of a photon and its frequency, and by the mass-energy equivalence, the relationship between mass and frequency. Specifically, a photon's energy is equal to its frequency multiplied by the Planck constant. The constant is generally denoted by h. The reduced Planck constant, or Dirac constant, equal to the constant divided by 2 \pi, is denoted by \hbar. In metrology it is used, together with other constants, to define the kilogram, the SI unit of mass. The SI units are defined in such a way that, when the Planck constant is expressed in SI units, it has the exact value The constant was first postulated by Max Planck in 1900 as part of a solution to the ultraviolet catastrophe. At the end of the 19th century, accurate measurements of the spectrum of black body radiation existed, but the distribut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planck Constant
The Planck constant, or Planck's constant, is a fundamental physical constant of foundational importance in quantum mechanics. The constant gives the relationship between the energy of a photon and its frequency, and by the mass-energy equivalence, the relationship between mass and frequency. Specifically, a photon's energy is equal to its frequency multiplied by the Planck constant. The constant is generally denoted by h. The reduced Planck constant, or Dirac constant, equal to the constant divided by 2 \pi, is denoted by \hbar. In metrology it is used, together with other constants, to define the kilogram, the SI unit of mass. The SI units are defined in such a way that, when the Planck constant is expressed in SI units, it has the exact value The constant was first postulated by Max Planck in 1900 as part of a solution to the ultraviolet catastrophe. At the end of the 19th century, accurate measurements of the spectrum of black body radiation existed, but the distribut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
