PHYSICS DICTIONARY

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Laboratory Frame of Reference

Frame of reference, the centre of the coordinate system which lies on the laboratory in which experiment is done.

                                            or

The frame of reference in which laboratory measurement devices are at rest is usually referred as laboratory frame of reference.


Lambda Particle 

It is a elementary particle, which is neutral and discovered in cloud chamber experiments, having life time of order 10-10 sec and has rest energy of about 1115 MeV. It doesn’t conserve parity and has spin- 1/2. It belongs to class of Hyperons.


Lambda Point

When Helium is cooled to a critical temperature of 2.17 K (called its lambda point), a remarkable discontinuity in heat capacity occurs, the liquid density drops, and a fraction of the liquid becomes a zero viscosity "superfluid". Super fluidity arises from the fraction of helium atoms which has condensed to the lowest possible energy. In simple terms, the Lambda point is the temperature below which normal fluid Helium (Helium-I) transitions to super fluid Helium-II 


Lambert

The unit of brightness or luminance in CGS system, equivalent to brightness of a perfectly diffusing surface that emits or reflects one Lumen per square centimeter. 1Lambert (L) = 1/π Candela/cm2.


Lambert’s Law of Absorption

Each layer of equal thickness absorbs an equal fraction of light which traverses it.  


Lambert’s Law of Illumination

The illumination of a surface on which light falls normally from a point source is inversely proportional to square of distance of surface from source. If the normal to surface makes an angle with direction of rays, illumination is proportional to cosine of that angle.


Lambert’s law

Law which describes the attenuation of intensity of electromagnetic wave inside a medium is called as Lambert’s law.

 

Laminar Flow

It is type of fluid flow in which the fluid travels in regular paths. In laminar flow, sometimes called streamline flow, the velocity, pressure and other flow properties at each point in the fluid remain constant.


Laplace Equation

It is a mathematical equation which gives the divergence of the gradient of a function. Laplace’s equation is a  second-order partial differential equation widely useful in physics because its solutions (known as harmonic functions) occur in problems of electrical, magnetic, and gravitational potentials, of steady-state temperatures, and of Hydrodynamics. The equation was discovered by the French mathematician and astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827).


Larmor’s Precession

When an atom is placed in an external magnetic field, the electron orbit precesses about the direction of external magnetic field. There will be change in angular velocity of electron without any change in form of orbit.


LASER

It is acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It is that device which produces an intense, monochromatic, coherent and unidirectional light beam is obtained. It was discovered in 1950, by Town & Shallow. LASER produces a light beam in which all the waves are of same frequency.     


Latent Heat (Heat of Transformation)

The amount of energy per unit mass that must be transferred as heat when a sample completely undergoes phase transition.

(or)

The amount of heat needed to change the state of a given substance without any change in temperature.


Latent Heat of Fusion

The quantity of heat necessary to change one gram of solid to liquid without change of temperature, measured as calories per gram.


Latent Heat of Sublimation

The heat absorbed by one gram or unit mass of a substance in the process of changing from a solid to a gaseous state, at a constant temperature and pressure.


Latent Heat of Vaporization

The quantity of heat necessary to change one gram of liquid to vapor without change of temperature, measured as calories per gram.


Lateral Chromatic Aberration

The difference in length of red and violet images for an object at finite distance is called lateral chromatic vibration. 

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Kaon

Any of three unstable mesons, one having charge +1 and a mass of 966 electron masses, and two being electrically neutral, with a mass 974 electron masses. Their half-life is approximately 10-8 seconds, and they decay through the weak force. 


Kellner’s Eye Piece

It consists of two plano-convex lenses of same focal lengths and separated by a distance equal to the focal length of either lens.


Kelvin Planck Statement

Conversion of total heat energy into work is impossible.


Kelvin

It is the unit of thermodynamic temperature; it is the fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of triple point of water.


Kelvin’s Statement of Second Law of Thermodynamics

It is impossible to get a continuous supply of work by cooling a body to a temperature lower than that of coldest of its surroundings.


Kelvin’s Thermodynamic Scale

The ratio of two temperatures measured on absolute scale is equal to the ratio of heat absorbed to the heat rejected by a reversible engine working between these temperatures.


Kepler’s First Law

Every planet revolves round the sun in an elliptical orbit with the sun at one of its foci. This law is known as law of orbits.


Kepler’s Second Law

The radius vector joining a planet to the sun sweeps equal areas in equal intervals of time.

                                                  (or)

The areal velocity of a planet round the sun is constant. This law is known as “law of areas”.


Kepler’s Third Law

Square of the time period of revolution of a planet round the sun is directly proportional to the cube of mean distance of the planet from the sun.


Kerma

Kerma is an acronym of kinetic energy released in a medium per unit mass. It is defined as the total kinetic energy of all the charged particles liberated by uncharged particles per unit mass of the target material. Kerma is generally measured in the same units that are used for absorbed dose, that is, J/kg or Gray. Kerma is not independent of the type of the target material and therefore must always be defined with respect to the medium.

Mathematically, it is written as the quotient of the charged particle’s kinetic energy Ekin and the mass of the material dm, that is K= dEkin/dm.

or

It is one of the quantities to describe the interaction of ionizing radiation with matter. It is defined as expectation value of energy transferred to charged particles per unit mass at a point of interest, including radiative loss of energy but excluding energy passed from one charged particle to another.


Kilo Calorie

The amount of energy required to increase the temperature of one kilogram of water by 1 oC.


Kilogram

The Kilogram is the usual scientific unit of mass. The standard Kilogram is the mass of a particular cylinder of Platinum Iridium alloy kept near Paris in France. All masses that are measured are compared with this.

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Josephson Junction

It is a device formed from sandwiching very thin insulator layer between two superconductors. There is continuous flow of electric current without influence of any external voltage in such devices, the effect which is named as Josephson Effect which was named after British scientist Brian Josephson who proposed it in 1962.


Joule Kelvin Effect

In physics, the Joule-Thomson effect or Joule-Kelvin effect describes the increase or decrease in the temperature of a real gas when it is allowed to expand freely at constant enthalpy (which means that no heat is transferred to or from the gas, and no external work is extracted). For each gas, there is a temperature of inversion above which the change is positive and below which it is negative.


Joule

It is SI unit of energy.


Joule’s Law of Heating

When a current of I amperes passes through a circuit of resistance R ohms for a time of t seconds then the heat produced is given by the relation H=I2Rt joules; The relation is known as the joule’s law of heating.


Joules Expansion

When a definite mass of a gas is expanded such that the external work done by the gas or on the gas is zero, neither the gas absorbs nor rejects any heat, then the expansion of gas is known as Joules expansion.


Joules Law (Gases)

Internal energy of an ideal gas only depends on its temperature ‘T’ and doesn’t depend on its volume ‘V’ and pressure ‘P’.


Joule-Thomson Effect

When a gas passes through an insulated porous plug from a constant high pressure to a constant low pressure, there is change in its temperature. This effect is called Joule-Thomson’s effect and the processes are called adiabatic throttling process.


Junction Diode

It is semiconductor device consisting of a single PN junction. It has a highly non linear current – voltage characteristic and is often used as a rectifying element.


Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest. Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. The mass of Jupiter is 318 times that of Earth. It has orbit of 778,330,000 Km (5.20 AU) from Sun; Diameter of 142,984 km (equatorial); Mass of 1.900 x 1027 Kg.

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Ice Point

The temperature, equal to 0 oC, at which pure water and ice are in equilibrium in a mixture at 1 atmosphere of pressure is called as ice point. Ice point is most important fixed point for defining temperature scales and for calibrating thermometers.


Ideal Fluid

Fluid is called as ideal fluid if it has zero viscosity, zero compressibility and its flow should be irrotational and steady.


Ideal Gas

It is the gas which perfectly obeys Boyle’s law and Charles law.


Identical Particles

If two particles are identical, no observable effects whatever can arise from interchanging them.  More precisely, all observable quantities must remain unaltered if the position, momentum and other dynamical variables such as spin of first particle are interchanged with those of second particle. 


Illumination

Process of focusing light on to something to make it visible or bright is called as illumination.


Image

It is an optically formed duplicate counterpart or other representative reproduction of an object, especially an optical reproduction formed by lens or mirror.

                                                 or

Optical appearance or counterpart produced by light from an object reflected in mirror refracted through lens.   


Imaginary Number

It is mathematical quantity of the form iX, where ‘X’ is real number. ‘I’ is unit imaginary number and   i2 = -1.


Impedance

Characteristic of alternating current circuit made of two components: “resistance” and “reactance”,  which is a measure of total opposition to current flow. It is usually represented as Z= R+iX, where ‘R’ is ohmic resistance and ‘X’ is reactance.


Impulse

It is defined as change in momentum when large force acts for short time interval.


Impurity Diffusion

Process, where by atoms of one metal diffuse into another is termed as impurity diffusion.

 

Incandescence

Property of hot body which emits visible electromagnetic radiation by virtue of its temperature.


Independent Variable

Variable who values are independent of changes in the values of other variables. 

                                                          Or

Variable whose value determines the value of other variables.


Indirect Band Semiconductor

The semiconductor in which an electron in  conduction band (minimum) cannot fall to valence band maximum but must undergo change in momentum, which may be caused by traps in energy gap. Generally, the energy difference is given up as heat to lattice.


Indirectly Ionizing Radiation

It Comprises neutral particles (such as photons, X-rays, neutrons) that deposit energy in the absorber through a two-step process as follows: In the first step a charged particle is released in the absorber (photons release either electrons or electron/positron pairs; neutrons release protons or heavier ions). In the second step, the released charged particles deposit energy to the absorber through direct Coulomb interactions with orbital electrons of the atoms in the absorber.


Induced Charge

When a charged object is put close to a neutral object, charges are induced on the surface of the neutral object and are called induced charges.


Inductance

The energy density is proportional to the square of the magnetic field strength, which is in turn proportional to the current flowing through the coiled wire, so the energy stored in the inductor must be proportional to square of the current. The constant of proportionality is called as inductance. The unit is joules per ampere squared, abbreviated as Henry.


Induction

Concept discovered by Faraday in 1831. Any electric field that changes over time will produce magnetic field in space around it                                              

                                                               or

any magnetic field that changes over time will produce an electric field in the space around it.


Induction Coil

The induction coil was invented in the late nineteenth century as a source of high voltage for laboratory experiments. Induction coil is a device for converting low-voltage direct current (DC) into high-voltage alternating current (AC). It is a single coil of conductive material, often surrounding a metallic core, designed to establish a strong magnetic field around the coil. Changes in the current flow through the coil cause fluctuations in the magnetic field that induce a voltage across the coil. Induction coils are used for many purposes, especially as spark coils for firing spark plugs in automobile engines and starting oil burners.