PHYSICS DICTIONARY

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

<Prev>                   <Next> 

Fabry Perot Interferometer

An interferometer made of a transparent plate with two reflecting surfaces or two parallel highly reflecting mirrors. It is named after Charles Fabry & Alfred Perot. It makes use of multiple reflections between two closely spaced partially silvered surfaces. Part of light is transmitted each time the light reaches second surface, resulting in multiple offset beams which can interfere with each other. The large number of interfering rays produces an interferometer with extremely high resolution, somewhat like multiple slits of all diffraction grating increase its resolution.


Face Centered Cubic structure(FCC)

The crystal structure found for many metals has a unit cell of cubic geometry, with atoms located at each of the corners and the centers of all cubic faces.


Fahrenheit Scale

Temperature scale introduced by German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724. On this scale, the freezing point of water is 32 degree Fahrenheit and boiling point 212 degree Fahrenheit at standard atmospheric pressure. This puts boiling and freezing points of water exactly 180o apart. Therefore a degree on Fahrenheit scale is 1/180 of interval between freezing and boiling point. A temperature interval of 1oF is equal to an interval of 5/9 oC.  


Farad

It is SI unit for capacitance. It is named after English Physicist Michael Faraday. A capacitor is said to have one Farad value when one coulomb of stored charge causes a potential difference of 1 Volt across its terminals.

1Farad = 1 Coulomb / Volt.


Faraday Effect

The rotation of plane of polarization of a light beam when plane polarized light is passed through a substance in a magnetic field; the direction of travelling of light is parallel to magnetic lines of force. For a given substance, the rotation is proportional to thickness traversed by light and to the magnetic field strength.


Faraday’s Constant

The total charge carried by 1 mole of electrons is given by   96487 Cmol-1. The quantity is known as Faraday constant.


Faraday’s Law of Electrolysis

The quantitative relationships between electricity and chemical change where first described by Michael faraday in 1830. These are

i) The mass of a chemical substance involved at an electrode is directly proportional to quantity of electricity passed through the cell.

ii)The mass of different substances produced by a given quantity of electricity are proportional to equivalent mass of substances.    

Mathematical representation

a) m α Q     b)  m α M/ve

where ‘m’ represents mass of substance deposited at cathode; ‘M’ represents molar mass of substance; ve denotes stoichometric number of electrons in reaction involving reduction/oxidation of chemical species at respective electrode of electrolytic cell.


Faraday’s law of Electromagnetic Induction

 It states that induced emf in a closed circuit is equal to negative rate at which magnetic flux through it changes.


Fast Neutrons

Neutrons possessing high kinetic energies in the million electron volt range are called fast neutrons.


Fathom(ftm)

It is a unit of length used especially for measuring depth of water. 1 ftm = 1.8288 meters. 


Fault

Places where rock structures have broken apart and can slide past each other are called faults.


Feedback

The process of injecting a portion of output energy of some device to the input is known as feedback.


Femto

It is a prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of 10-15.


Fermat’s Principle of Extremum Path

Fermat, in 1658, postulated that “a ray of light in passing from one point to another by any number of reflections or refractions chooses a path along which the time taken is least or extremum.                                                                                                      


Fermi Dirac Statistics

Statistics proposed by Fermi & Dirac. The postulates are as follows:   

i) Applicable to identical & indistinguishable particles with spin odd multiple of half, such as electrons, protons, neutrons etc, which are called the Fermions;

ii) The minimum volume of a phase cell is h3, so the number of phase cells cannot be increased.

iii) No new microstate is obtained by the interchange of position of particles in a cell.

iv)There cannot be more than one particle in a cell i.e. Pauli’s exclusion principle is obeyed.  

PHYSICS DICTIONARY

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

<Prev>                   <Next> 


Earth

One of the nine planets revolving around sun and is third planet orbiting from sun. The distance of orbit from sun is 149,600,000Km and has diameter of 12,756.3Kms. It is the fifth largest of the planets. The Mass is about 5.97x1024 Kg


Echo

Repetition of sound produced due to reflection by a distant extended surface like cliff, hill, well, building etc., is called an echo. The effect of sound on human ear remains 1/10th of second. If sound reflects back in a time less than 1/10th of second, no echo is heard.


Eddy Current

When a metal body is moved in a magnetic field in such a way that the magnetic flux through it changes or is placed in a changing magnetic field, induced current circulates throughout the body.  They are called eddy currents.


Edge Dislocation

A linear crystalline defect associated with the lattice distortion produced in the vicinity of the end of an extra half plane of atoms within a crystal. The burgers vector is perpendicular to the dislocation.


Effective Mass of Electron

The mass of an electron inside crystal appears, in general, different from free electron mass and is referred to as effective mass. The effective mass can be greater or lesser than electron mass.


Efficiency of Engine

The ratio of useful work obtained by the engine in one cycle to the heat absorbed from the source is called efficiency of engine.


Effusion

Effusion is the process in which individual molecules flow through a hole without collisions between molecules. This occurs if diameter of the hole is considerably smaller than the mean path of molecules. According to Graham’s law, rate at which gas effuse is dependent on their molecular weight; gases with lower molecular weight effuse more quickly.


Eigen Function

It is wave function for a given physical system which contains measurable information about system. 


Eigen Value

The word is derived from German word “Eigenwert” which means characteristic value. A scalar associated with a given linear transformation of vector space and having the property that there is some non zero vector which when multiplied by scalar is equal to vector obtained by letting the transformation operate on the vector.

 

Einstein Shift

In astrophysics, gravitational red shift or Einstein shift is the process by which electromagnetic radiation originating from a source that is in gravitational field is reduced in frequency, or red shifted, when observed in a region of a weaker gravitational field. This is a direct result of Gravitational time dilation - as one moves away from a source of gravitational field, the rate at which time passes is increased relative to the case when one is near the source. As frequency is inverse of time (specifically, time required for completing one wave oscillation), frequency of the electromagnetic radiation is reduced in an area of a higher gravitational potential (i.e., equivalently, of lower gravitational field). There is a corresponding reduction in energy when electromagnetic radiation is red-shifted, as given by Planck's relation, due to the electromagnetic radiation propagating in opposition to the gravitational gradient.


Einstein Theory of Specific Heats

A theory of the specific heat capacity of solids put forward by Albert Einstein in 1906, in which it was assumed that the specific heat capacity is a consequence of the vibrations of the atoms of the lattice of the solid. Einstein assumed that each atom has the same frequency. The theory leads to the correct conclusion that the specific heat of solids tends to zero as the temperature goes to absolute zero, but does not give a correct quantitative description of the low temperature behavior of the specific heat capacity.