analog/digital devices
Analog devices model the world by using one continuous variable to represent another. Familiar examples include dials that measure a quantity such as speed, pressure, or current by the angle ...
astrophysics
The study of the physical and chemical processes involving astronomical phenomena. Astrophysics deals with stellar structure and evolution (including the generation and transport of energy within ...
atomic structure
By 1890, much evidence had accumulated that the atom of chemistry and the molecule of physics must have parts. The chemical evidence included analogies between the behavior of dilute solutions ...
binnacle
The wooden housing of the mariner's magnetic compass and its correctors and lighting arrangements. The change from bittacle to binnacle came in about 1750, although the former name did not entirely ...
bulbous bow
A rounded underwater projection forward of the ship's stem, which has been fitted on most seagoing ships, from cruise liners to tankers to fishing boats, since the 1960s. The object of the bulbous ...
calculator
A device for performing arithmetical calculations or algebraic manipulations. The earliest example is the abacus. Hand-held electronic calculators now have the computational powers of the early ...
cold and cryonics
Artificially produced cold has always been welcome. From the time ice was brought from the mountains so that the Roman emperors could enjoy their wine chilled in the summer to ...
conservation law
A law stating that the total magnitude of a certain physical property of a system, such as its mass, energy, or charge, remain unchanged even though there may be exchanges of that property between ...
deviation
N.(in marine insurance) The departure of a ship from an agreed course. A ship must follow the course specified in a voyage or mixed insurance policy (see time policy); if no course is specified, the ...
electromagnetism
The study of electricity and magnetism has alternated between theories that represented the two as manifestations of a single effect and the view that they were separate phenomena, with general ...
electrotechnology
The first practical (and very questionable) application of electricity occurred in the eighteenth century. Using electrostatic machines and Leyden jars, natural philosophers, doctors, and various ...
English-speaking world
Science has had several principal languages over the centuries—Greek, Latin, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, and English. During the eighteenth century, French dominated discourse about ...
entropy
1 Measure of disorder or unavailable energy in a thermodynamic system; the measure of increasing disorganization of the universe.2 See least-work principle; and least-work profile.
ether
A possibly nonexistent entity invoked from time to time to fill otherwise empty spaces in the world and in natural philosophy. Descended from the Aristotelian quintessence, which occupied the realms ...
exhibitions
The temporary display in a given location of a selection of artworks or artefacts. The very first exhibitions of *‘Old Masters’ were held in Rome and Florence in the 17th century. By the 19th century ...
field
A central concept of physical theory. A field is defined by the distribution of a physical quantity, such as temperature, mass density, or potential energy, at different points in space. In the ...
fundamental constants
Those parameters that do not change throughout the universe. The charge on an electron, the speed of light in free space, the Planck constant, the gravitational constant, the electric constant, and ...
geophysics
The science concerned with all aspects of the physical properties and processes of the Earth and planetary bodies and their interpretation, including, for example, seismology, gravity, magnetism, ...
heat engine
A device for converting heat into work. Engines usually work on cycles of operation, the most efficient of which would be the Carnot cycle.
