Реферат: Физические законы, переменные, принципы

Ideal gas laws

    Boyle's law.  The pressure of an ideal gas is inversely proportional to the volume of the gas at constant temperature.

    Charles' law.  The volume of an ideal gas is directly proportional to the thermodynamic temperature at constant pressure.

    The pressure law.  The pressure of an ideal gas is directly proportional to the thermodynamic temperature at constant volume.

Joule-Thomson effect; Joule-Kelvin effect (J. Joule, W. Thomson)

    The change in temperature that occurs when a gas expands into aregion of lower pressure.

Joule's laws

    Joule's first law.  The heat produced when an electric current flows through a resistance for a specified time is equal to the square of the current multiplied by the resistivity multiplied by the time.

    Joule's second law.  The internal energy of an ideal gas is independent of its volume and pressure, depending only on its temperature.

Josephson effects (B.D. Josephson; 1962)

    Electrical effects observed when two superconducting materials areseparated by a thin layer of insulating material.

Kepler's laws (J. Kepler)

    Kepler's first law.  A planet orbits the Sun in an ellipse with the Sun at one focus.

   Kepler's second law.  A ray directed from the Sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times.

    Kepler's third law.  The square of the period of a planet's orbit is proportional to the cube of that planet's semimajor axis; the constant of proportionality is the same for all planets.

Kerr effect (J. Kerr; 1875)

    The ability of certain substances to differently refract lightwaves whose vibrations are in different directions when thesubstance is placed in an electric field.

Kirchhoff's law of radiation (G.R. Kirchhoff)

    The emissivity of a body is equal to its absorptance at the sametemperature.

Kirchhoff's rules (G.R. Kirchhoff)

    The loop rule.  The sum of the potential differences encountered in a round trip around any closed loop in a circuit is zero.

    The point rule.  The sum of the currents toward a branch point is equal to the sum of the currents away from the same branch point.

Kohlrausch's law (F. Kohlrausch)

    If a salt is dissolved in water, the conductivity of the solutionis the sum of two values -- one depending on the positive ions andthe other on the negative ions.

Lambert's laws (J.H. Lambert)

    Lambert's first law.  The illuminance on a surface illuminated by light falling on it perpendicularly from a point source is proportional to the inverse square of the distance between the surface and the source.

    Lambert's second law.  If the rays meet the surface at an angle, then the illuminance is also proportional to the cosine of the angle with the normal.

    Lambert's third law.  The luminous intensity of light decreases exponentially with the distance that it travels through an absorbing medium.

Landauer's principle

    A principle which states that it doesn't explicitly take energy tocompute data, but rather it takes energy to erase any data,since erasure is an important step in computation.

Laplace's equation (P. Laplace)

    For steady-state heat conduction in one dimension, the temperaturedistribution is the solution to Laplace's equation, which statesthat the second derivative of temperature with respect todisplacement is zero.

Laue pattern (M. von Laue)

    The pattern produced on a photographic film when high-frequencyelectromagnetic waves (such as x-rays) are fired at a crystallinesolid.

Laws of conservation

    A law which states that, in a closed system, the total quantity ofsomething will not increase or decrease, but remain exactly thesame.  For physical quantities, it states that something canneither be created nor destroyed.

    The most commonly seen are the laws of conservation of mass-energy (formerly two conservation laws before A. Einstein), ofelectric charge, of linear momentum, and of angular momentum.There are several others that deal more with particle physics,such as conservation of baryon number, of strangeness, etc., whichare conserved in some fundamental interactions but not others.

Law of reflection

    For a wavefront intersecting a reflecting surface, the angle ofincidence is equal to the angle of reflection.

Laws of black hole dynamics

    First law of black hole dynamics.  For interactions between black holes and normal matter, the conservation laws of total energy, total momentum, angular momentum, and electric charge,    hold.

    Second law of black hole dynamics.  With black hole interactions, or interactions between black holes and normal matter, the sum of the surface areas of all black holes involved can never decrease.

Laws of thermodynamics

    First law of thermodynamics.  The change in internal energy of a system is the sum of the heat transferred to or from the system and the work done on or by the system.

    Second law of thermodynamics.  The entropy -- a measure of the unavailability of a system's energy to do useful work -- of a closed system tends to increase with time.

    Third law of thermodynamics.  For changes involving only perfect crystalline solids at absolute zero, the change of the total entropy is zero.

    Zeroth law of thermodynamics.  If two bodies are each in thermal equilibrium with a third body, then all three bodies are in thermal equilibrium with each other.

Lawson criterion (J.D. Lawson)

    A condition for the release of energy from a thermonuclearreactor.  It is usually stated as the minimum value for theproduct of the density of the fuel particles and the containmenttime for energy breakeven.  For a half-and-half mixture ofdeuterium and tritium at ignition temperature, nG t is between1014 and 1015 s/cm3.

Le Chatelier's principle (H. Le Chatelier; 1888)

    If a system is in equilibrium, then any change imposed on thesystem tends to shift the equilibrium to reduce the effect of thatapplied change.

Lenz's law (H.F. Lenz; 1835)

    An induced electric current always flows in such a direction thatit opposes the change producing it.

Loschmidt constant; Loschmidt number; NL

    The number of particles per unit volume of an ideal gas atstandard temperature and pressure.  It has the value 2.68719.1025 m-3.

Lumeniferous aether

    A substance, which filled all the empty spaces between matter,which was used to explain what medium light was "waving" in.  Nowit has been discredited, as Maxwell's equations imply thatelectromagnetic radiation can propagate in a vacuum, since theyare disturbances in the electromagnetic field rather thantraditional waves in some substance, such as water waves.

Lyman series

    The series which describes the emission spectrum of hydrogen whenelectrons are jumping to the ground state.  All of the lines arein the ultraviolet.

Mach's principle (E. Mach; 1870s)

    The inertia of any particular particle or particles of matter isattributable to the interaction between that piece of matter andthe rest of the Universe.  Thus, a body in isolation would have noinertia.

Magnus effect

    A rotating cylinder in a moving fluid drags some of the fluidaround with it, in its direction of rotation.  This increases thespeed in that region, and thus the pressure is lower.Consequently, there is a net force on the cylinder in thatdirection, perpendicular to the flow of the fluid.  This is calledthe Magnus effect.

Malus's law (E.L. Malus)

    The light intensity travelling through a polarizer is proportionalto the initial intensity of the light and the square of the cosineof the angle between the polarization of the light ray and thepolarization axis of the polarizer.

Maxwell's demon (J.C. Maxwell)

    A thought experiment illustrating the concepts of entropy.  Wehave a container of gas which is partitioned into two equal sides;each side is in thermal equilibrium with the other.  The walls(and the partition) of the container are a perfect insulator.    Now imagine there is a very small demon who is waiting at thepartition next to a small trap door.  He can open and close thedoor with negligible work.  Let's say he opens the door to allow afast-moving molecule to travel from the left side to the right, orfor a slow-moving molecule to travel from the right side to the left, and keeps it closed for all other molecules.  The net effectwould be a flow of heat -- from the left side to the right -- eventhough the container was in thermal equilibrium.  This is clearlya violation of the second law of thermodynamics.    So where did we go wrong?  It turns out that information hasto do with entropy as well.  In order to sort out the moleculesaccording to speeds, the demon would be having to keep a memory ofthem -- and it turns out that increase in entropy of the simplemaintenance of this simple memory would more than make up for thedecrease in entropy due to the heat flow.

Maxwell's equations (J.C. Maxwell; 1864)

    Four elegant equations which describe classical electromagnetismin all its splendor.  They are:   

    Gauss' law.  The electric flux through a closed surface is proportional to the algebraic sum of electric charges contained within that closed surface.

    Gauss' law for magnetic fields.  The magnetic flux through a closed surface is zero; no magnetic charges exist.

    Faraday's law.  The line integral of the electric flux around a closed curve is proportional to the instantaneous time rate of change of the magnetic flux through a surface bounded by that closed curve.

    Ampere's law, modified form.  The line integral of the magnetic flux around a closed curve is proportional to the sum of two terms:  first, the algebraic sum of electric currents flowing through that closed curve; and second, the instantaneous time rate of change of the electric flux through a surface bounded by that closed curve.

    In addition to describing electromagnetism, his equations alsopredict that waves can propagate through the electromagneticfield, and would always propagate at the same speed -- these are electromagnetic waves.

Meissner effect (W. Meissner; 1933)

    The decrease of the magnetic flux within a superconducting metalwhen it is cooled below the critical temperature.  That is,superconducting materials reflect magnetic fields.

Michelson-Morley experiment (A.A. Michelson, E.W. Morley; 1887)

    Possibly the most famous null-experiment of all time, designed toverify the existence of the proposed "lumeniferous aether" throughwhich light waves were thought to propagate.  Since the Earthmoves through this aether, a lightbeam fired in the Earth'sdirection of motion would lag behind one fired sideways, where noaether effect would be present.  This difference could be detectedwith the use of an interferometer.

    The experiment showed absolutely no aether shift whatsoever,where one should have been quite detectable.  Thus the aetherconcept was discredited as was the constancy of the speed oflight.

Millikan oil drop experiment (R.A. Millikan)

    A famous experiment designed to measure the electronic charge.Drops of oil were carried past a uniform electric field betweencharged plates.  After charging the drop with x-rays, he adjustedthe electric field between the plates so that the oil drop wasexactly balanced against the force of gravity.  Then the charge onthe drop would be known.  Millikan did this repeatedly and foundthat all the charges he measured came in integer multiples only ofa certain smallest value, which is the charge on the electron.

Newton's law of universal gravitation (Sir I. Newton)

    Two bodies attract each other with equal and opposite forces; themagnitude of this force is proportional to the product of the twomasses and is also proportional to the inverse square of thedistance between the centers of mass of the two bodies.

Newton's laws of motion (Sir I. Newton)

    Newton's first law of motion.  A body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion unless it is acted upon by an external force.

    Newton's second law of motion.  For an unbalanced force acting on a body, the acceleration produces is proportional to the force impressed; the constant of proportionality is the inertial mass of the body.

    Newton's third law of motion.  In a system where no external forces are present, every action is always opposed by an equal and opposite reaction.

Ohm's law (G. Ohm; 1827)

    The ratio of the potential difference between the ends of aconductor to the current flowing through it is constant; theconstant of proportionality is called the resistance, and isdifferent for different materials.

Olbers' paradox (H. Olbers; 1826)

    If the Universe is infinite, uniform, and unchanging then theentire sky at night would be bright -- about as bright as the Sun.The further you looked out into space, the more stars there wouldbe, and thus in any direction in which you looked your line-of-sight would eventually impinge upon a star.  The paradox isresolved by the Big Bang theory, which puts forth that theUniverse is not infinite, non-uniform, and changing.

Pascal's principle

    Pressure applied to an enclosed imcompressible static fluid istransmitted undiminished to all parts of the fluid.

Paschen series

    The series which describes the emission spectrum of hydrogen whenthe electron is jumping to the third orbital.  All of the linesare in the infrared portion of the spectrum.

Pauli exclusion principle (W. Pauli; 1925)

    No two identical fermions in a system, such as electrons in anatom, can have an identical set of quantum numbers.

Peltier effect (J.C.A. Peltier; 1834)

    The change in temperature produced at a junction between twodissimilar metals or semiconductors when an electric currentpasses through the junction.

permeability of free space; magnetic constant; m 0

    The ratio of the magnetic flux density in a substance to theexternal field strength for vacuum.  It is equal to 4 p . 10-7 H/m.

permittivity of free space; electric constant; e0

    The ratio of the electric displacement to the intensity of theelectric field producing it in vacuum.  It is equal to 8.854.10-12 F/m.

Pfund series

    The series which describes the emission spectrum of hydrogen whenthe electron is jumping to the fifth orbital.  All of the linesare in the infrared portion of the spectrum.

Photoelectric effect

    An effect explained by A. Einstein that demonstrate that lightseems to be made up of particles, or photons.  Light can exciteelectrons (called photoelectrons) to be ejected from a metal.Light with a frequency below a certain threshold, at anyintensity, will not cause any photoelectrons to be emitted fromthe metal.  Above that frequency, photoelectrons are emitted inproportion to the intensity of incident light.    The reason is that a photon has energy in proportion to itswavelength, and the constant of proportionality is Planck'sconstant.  Below a certain frequency -- and thus below a certainenergy -- the incident photons do not have enough energy to knockthe photoelectrons out of the metal.  Above that threshold energy,called the workfunction, photons will knock the photoelectrons outof the metal, in proportion to the number of photons (theintensity of the light).  At higher frequencies and energies, thephotoelectrons ejected obtain a kinetic energy corresponding tothe difference between the photon's energy and the workfunction.

Planck constant; h

    The fundamental constant equal to the ratio of the energy of aquantum of energy to its frequency.  It is the quantum of action.It has the value 6.626196.10-34 J.s.

Planck's radiation law

    A law which more accurately described blackbody radiation becauseit assumed that electromagnetic radiation is quantized.

Poisson spot (S.D. Poisson)

    See Arago spot.  Poisson predicted the existence of such a spot,and actually used it to demonstrate that the wave theory of lightmust be in error.

Principle of causality

    The principle that cause must always preceed effect.  Moreformally, if an event A ("the cause") somehow influences an eventB ("the effect") which occurs later in time, then event B cannotin turn have an influence on event A.    The principle is best illustrated with an example.  Say thatevent A constitutes a murderer making the decision to kill hisvictim, and that event B is the murderer actually committing theact.  The principle of causality puts forth that the act ofmurder cannot have an influence on the murderer's decision tocommit it.  If the murderer were to somehow see himself committingthe act and change his mind, then a murder would have beencommitted in the future without a prior cause (he changed hismind).  This represents a causality violation.  Both time traveland faster-than-light travel both imply violations of causality,which is why most physicists think they are impossible, or atleast impossible in the general sense.

Principle of determinism

    The principle that if one knows the state to an infinite accuracyof a system at one point in time, one would be able to predict thestate of that system with infinite accuracy at any other time,past or future.  For example, if one were to know all of thepositions and velocities of all the particles in a closed system,then determinism would imply that one could then predict thepositions and velocities of those particles at any other time.This principle has been disfavored due to the advent of quantummechanics, where probabilities take an important part in theactions of the subatomic world, and the Heisenberg uncertaintyprinciple implies that one cannot know both the position andvelocity of a particle to arbitrary precision.

Rayleigh criterion; resolving power

    A criterion for the how finely a set of optics may be able todistinguish.  It begins with the assumption that central ring ofone image should fall on the first dark ring of the other.relativity principle; principle of relativity

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

    The phenomena by which, at sufficiently low temperatures, a fluidcan flow with zero viscosity.

Superposition principle of forces

    The net force on a body is equal to the sum of the forcesimpressed upon it.

Superposition principle of states

    The resultant quantum mechnical wavefunction due to two or moreindividual wavefunctions is the sum of the individualwavefunctions.

Superposition principle of waves

    The resultant wave function due to two or more individual wavefunctions is the sum of the individual wave functions.

Thomson experiment; Kelvin effect (Sir W. Thomson [later Lord Kelvin])

    When an electric current flows through a conductor whose ends aremaintained at different temperatures, heat is released at a rateapproximately proportional to the product of the current and thetemperature gradient.

Twin paradox

    One of the most famous "paradoxes" in history, predicted by A.Einstein's special theory of relativity.  Take two twins, born onthe same date on Earth.  One, Albert, leaves home for a triparound the Universe at very high speeds (very close to that oflight), while the other, Henrik, stays at home at rests.  Specialrelativity predicts that when Albert returns, he will find himselfmuch younger than Henrik.    That is actually not the paradox.  The paradox stems fromattempting to naively analyze the situation to figure out why.From Henrik's point of view (and from everyone else on Earth),Albert seems to speed off for a long time, linger around, and thenreturn.  Thus he should be the younger one, which is what we see.But from Albert's point of view, it's Henrik (and the whole of the Earth) that are travelling, not he.  According to specialrelativity, if Henrik is moving relative to Albert, then Albertshould measure his clock as ticking slower -- and thus Henrik isthe one who should be younger.  But this is not what happens.

    So what's wrong with our analysis?  The key point here is thatthe symmetry was broken.  Albert did something that Henrik didnot -- Albert accelerated in turning around.  Henrik did noaccelerating, as he and all the other people on the Earth canattest to (neglecting gravity).  So Albert broke the symmetry, andwhen he returns, he is the younger one.

Ultraviolet catastrophe

    A shortcoming of the Rayleigh-Jeans formula, which attempted todescribe the radiancy of a blackbody at various frequencies of theelectromagnetic spectrum.  It was clearly wrong because as thefrequency increased, the radiancy increased without bound;something quite not observed; this was dubbed the "ultravioletcatastrophe."  It was later reconciled and explained by theintroduction of Planck's radiation law.

Universal constant of gravitation; G

    The constant of proportionality in Newton's law of universalgravitation and which plays an analogous role in A. Einstein'sgeneral relativity.  It is equal to 6.664.10-11 N.m2/kg2.

Van der Waals force (J.D. van der Waals)

    Forces responsible for the non-ideal behavior of gases, and forthe lattice energy of molecular crystals.  There are three causes:dipole-dipole interaction; dipole-induced dipole moments; anddispersion forces arising because of small instantaneous dipolesin atoms.

Wave-particle duality

    The principle of quantum mechanics which implies that light (and,indeed, all other subatomic particles) sometimes act like a wave,and sometime act like a particle, depending on the experiment youare performing.  For instance, low frequency electromagneticradiation tends to act more like a wave than a particle; highfrequency electromagnetic radiation tends to act more like aparticle than a wave.

Widenmann-Franz law

    The ratio of the thermal conductivity of any pure metal to itselectrical conductivity is approximately constant for any giventemperature.  This law holds fairly well except at lowtemperatures.

Wien's displacement law

    For a blackbody, the product of the wavelength corresponding tothe maximum radiancy and the thermodynamic temperature is aconstant.  As a result, as the temperature rises, the maximum ofthe radiant energy shifts toward the shorter wavelength (higherfrequency and energy) end of the spectrum.

Woodward-Hoffmann rules

    Rules governing the formation of products during certain types oforganic reactions.

Young's experiment; double-slit experiment (T. Young; 1801)

    A famous experiment which shows the wave nature of light (andindeed of other particles).  Light is passed from a small sourceonto an opaque screen with two thin slits.  The light is refractedthrough these slits and develops an interference pattern on theother side of the screen.

Zeeman effect; Zeeman line splitting (P. Zeeman; 1896)

    The splitting of the lines in a spectrum when the source is exposed to a magnetic field.

Used Literature.

1. «Basic Postulats» by Gabrele O’Hara

2. «Elementary Physic For Students» by Bill Strong

3. «Atomic Physic» by Steve Grevesone

4. «Optica» by Steve Grevesone

5. «Thermodynamic’s Laws» by Kay Fedos