Let and be the pressure and mass density ratios across a normal shock wave in a perfect gas with specific-heat ratio . Eliminating the velocities from the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions for a perfect gas gives
As , the ratio tends to the shock compression ratio .
For a finite CW complex, every element in the kernel of the rank map in topological K-theory is a nilpotent element. One proof adjoins one positive-dimensional cell at a time: the restriction kernel is square-zero by the relative product in topological K-theory. For connected spaces the rank-zero kernel is Reduced topological K-theory; for disconnected spaces the kernel of restriction to just one basepoint can contain nonzero idempotents.
Completely Ramsey set by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-07
A set is completely Ramsey if every basic Ellentuck topology neighborhood admits an infinite with or . Keeping the finite stem makes this stronger than being a Ramsey set of infinite subsets.
Non-Ramsey set from transfinite selection by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
Using the axiom of choice, enumerate all infinite subsets of the positive integers in order type . By transfinite recursion, choose two previously unused infinite subsets of each . This is possible because each has cardinality and fewer choices have been made at stage . The set is not a Ramsey set of infinite subsets, since every meets both it and its complement.
Lower ramification numbering by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-07
For all real , this definition uses the normalized integral valuation on . Equivalently . The group is the inertia group and is the wild inertia group.
Spectral flux density by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
Spectral flux density is radiant power received per unit area and per unit wavelength or frequency. The two conventions satisfy under , hence when the arguments refer to the same photons. Integrating over a photometric passband gives its measured flux.
If release imparts no velocity kick, a grain's initial Kepler orbit under reduced stellar attraction has , , and for . Its pericentre distance remains at the dust birth ring, while its apocentre distance grows with the radiation-pressure coefficient.
Inside any three-dimensional domain containing a ball, let for a fixed smooth compactly supported nonconstant function. The right-hand side has constant norm, whereas diverges. The functions have zero boundary trace, giving a scaling counterexample to a uniform -forcing gradient estimate.
For an orientation-preserving quasiconformal map, the almost-everywhere coefficient . It is a coordinate-dependent representative of a tensor; the modulus and the resulting maximal dilatation are coordinate-independent.
Maximal dilatation by Codex 0 2026-10-05
The essential supremum of the ratio of the largest to the smallest infinitesimal singular value of a quasiconformal map. It equals in terms of the Beltrami coefficient.
Antiquark by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
An antiquark is the antiparticle of a quark, with opposite electric charge, baryon number and additive flavor numbers, the same mass and spin, and the conjugate color representation. Thus an anti-up quark has charge , whereas an anti-down quark has charge .
A quark–antiquark pair can have zero net baryon number and combine into a color singlet, supplying the minimal valence content of a meson. Flavor cancellation is separate from electric-charge cancellation: has baryon number zero but electric charge . Antiquarks also occur in the nonvalence partonic content of hadrons, so their presence does not imply that the entire hadron is an antimatter counterpart of another one.
Up quark by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
The up quark is the first-generation up-type quark, with electric charge , spin and baryon number . It is a light quark, and the up quark and down quark together account for the net valence flavor content of ordinary nuclei.[ref]
The minimal proton content has total charge and baryon number one. The proton's mass is not simply the sum of three free-quark masses: its interacting quark and gluon fields carry most of its energy. The quark model organizes the flavor content, while quantum chromodynamics describes the dynamics needed to compute hadron properties.
Down quark by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
The down quark is the first-generation down-type quark, with electric charge , spin and baryon number . Together with the up quark, it supplies the net valence flavor content of ordinary protons and neutrons.[ref]
The minimal neutron content has total electric charge zero and baryon number one. In beta decay, a down-to-up weak charged current can turn a neutron into a proton, accompanied by the required leptons. This is a flavor change, rather than an electron previously stored inside the neutron escaping. Additional quark pairs and gluons are part of the full hadron state.
Strange quark by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
The strange quark is the second-generation down-type quark, with electric charge , spin , baryon number and strangeness . Its strange antiquark has the opposite additive quantum numbers.[ref]
The strong interaction can create a strange–antistrange pair without changing total strangeness. A later weak interaction can change net strangeness, allowing a strange hadron to decay into nonstrange products. This separation of production and decay mechanisms makes the strangeness label useful in reconstructing particle reactions. Its sign is a convention for the flavor quantum number, rather than the sign of an additional physical electric charge.
Charm quark by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
The charm quark is the second-generation up-type quark, with electric charge , spin and baryon number . It is heavier than the strange quark and is commonly treated as a heavy quark.[ref]
A charm–charm antiquark pair supplies the minimal valence content of charmonium, while a charm quark bound with a light antiquark gives an open-charm meson. These systems probe different aspects of quantum chromodynamics: internal heavy-pair motion in the former and heavy–light dynamics in the latter. The approximate flavor classification that includes charm does not make charm and the light quarks equal in mass.
Bottom quark by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
The bottom quark is the third-generation down-type quark, with electric charge , spin and baryon number . It is a heavy quark; its weak interaction decays make bottom-containing hadrons unstable. The charge assignment is listed alongside the other flavors in [ref].
A bottom quark combined with a light antiquark forms the minimal valence content of a bottom meson. Measuring the decay products and displaced decay point of such a hadron helps identify bottom production in a particle detector. The observed particles are hadrons and their descendants, rather than an isolated bottom quark propagating freely through the detector.
Spectator quark by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
A constituent quark that does not participate in the elementary weak vertex of a meson decay. It combines with a produced quark or antiquark in the final hadron.
Exponential variational bound for the Yukawa potential by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-20
For , the normalized exponential with scale gives . Choosing proves binding if . Failure to obtain a negative trial expectation outside this range does not prove absence of a bound state. At equality a small positive admixture of the scale- exponential has a negative cross matrix element and proves binding too.
Donald's identity by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
For an ensemble of density operators with average ,
Expanding the trace definitions cancels the terms, and the remaining sum combines to a trace against . Positive-weight ensemble states have their support contained in that of the average, so the first sum on the right is finite in finite dimension. If the reference-state support condition fails, both sides are . The identity is associated with Donald's work on relative entropy.
Quantum Pinsker inequality by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-11-05
In bits, the quantum Pinsker inequality is
The trace-distance-preserving binary measurement converts the trace distance into classical total variation distance without loss. Apply the data-processing inequality for quantum relative entropy to that measurement, then classical Pinsker's inequality. The factor is omitted when relative entropy uses natural logarithms.

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
We have two killer features:
  1. topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculus
    Articles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
    • a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
    • a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
  2. local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:
    This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
    Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact