Helical extremal by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A helical extremal has constant radius and a polar angle linear in axial position.
Open disc by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The open disc with centre and radius is .
Open ball by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
In a metric space, the open ball of radius about is ; it is the open-boundary convention for a ball.
Open interval by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
This is the open-boundary case of an interval.
An open interval in the real line is a set , allowing either endpoint to be infinite.
Bounded inverse theorem by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
A bounded bijective linear map between Banach spaces has a bounded inverse. This follows because an open bijection has continuous inverse.
Optimal one-to-one binary code by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Order source symbols by decreasing probability and assign the th symbol a binary word of length . This minimizes expected length among one-to-one binary codes because the available shortest words are assigned to the most probable symbols.
Malleability of an additive one-time pad by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
If an interceptor knows that an additive one-time-pad ciphertext encrypts plaintext and wants it to decrypt as , replacing it by
works without knowing the key, since .
One-dimensional transfer matrix from scattering amplitudes by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
If the left and right travelling-wave coefficients are related by
then
Dirichlet half-line Green function for d2 minus 1 by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For , the Green function satisfying
as is
Simple harmonic motion by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Simple harmonic motion is motion in which the acceleration is proportional to the displacement from equilibrium and points back towards it:
Here is measured from equilibrium, and is the constant angular frequency. For a point mass attached to an ideal spring, Hooke's law gives the restoring force , with stiffness , and Newton's second law yields . The minus sign matters: for the force is negative, and for it is positive. A restoring force need not oppose velocity; on the return towards equilibrium it increases speed.
The general solution is
The amplitude and oscillation phase encode the initial conditions. We use for the oscillation period to distinguish it from kinetic energy . For , the oscillation period is independent of amplitude, the property of isochronous harmonic motion. At the body remains at equilibrium. [ref]
Choose , , and release the mass from rest at displacement . Then , , and . Writing time in seconds,
At the velocity vanishes, but the acceleration is : a turning point is not a state of rest that persists. At , the body crosses equilibrium with velocity and zero acceleration. At it reaches the opposite turning point, .
Taking potential energy zero at equilibrium, the same solution gives
At each turning point all mechanical energy is potential energy; at each equilibrium crossing it is kinetic energy. Both repeat twice during one complete position cycle because squaring removes the sign. At , for example, each contributes .
Figure 1.
Position, velocity, phase ellipse and energy exchange for a mass of 0.5 kg on a spring of stiffness 2 N/m
. Details.
The physical position trace covers a line segment, in metres. In the phase plane, the paired position and velocity instead trace the ellipse
This is precisely , rewritten: the single conserved mechanical energy fixes the amplitude and the whole ellipse. It does not fix the starting oscillation phase. At both and lie on it; position alone cannot distinguish them. Replacing by momentum gives the equivalent phase-space trajectory. The arrows show increasing time, clockwise in coordinates.
This closed ellipse assumes a time-independent spring and no damping or applied drive. Adding a resisting force , , gives and . An underdamped damped harmonic oscillator spirals inward in the phase plane, crossing successively smaller energy contours. The ideal harmonic oscillator is also useful beyond springs: near a smooth potential energy minimum with , its Taylor expansion begins with . For sufficiently small displacements, this gives the same restoring force to leading order, explaining why small oscillations share one solvable pattern.
Period near a separatrix by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A trajectory approaching a nondegenerate unstable maximum of its potential energy has a logarithmically divergent period.
Every one-dimensional character kills the commutator subgroup and therefore factors through the abelianization. Conversely, every character of the abelianization pulls back to a one-dimensional character of the group.
Wind stress by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Wind stress is the tangential traction exerted by the atmosphere on the ocean surface. Its curl injects vorticity into the ocean.
Expectation value by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The expectation value of a quantum observable is the expected value of its measurement outcome random variable in a specified quantum state. It predicts the mean of outcomes from many identical quantum state preparations. It need not equal any one possible outcome: for a spin one-half particle, equal probabilities of and give mean zero even though zero is never an outcome of that spin component. Here is the reduced Planck constant.
Let be a Hermitian operator on a finite-dimensional Hilbert space, and let be a normalized pure state, . The spectral theorem writes
The are distinct real eigenvalues, are orthogonal projections onto their eigenspaces, and is the identity operator. For an ideal projective measurement of , the Born rule and the expectation value give
Thus the expectation value is a probability-weighted average of eigenvalues, including all vectors in a degenerate eigenspace in its . In an orthonormal eigenbasis, , this is , where repeated are allowed. The weighted average lies between the smallest and largest eigenvalues; it can lie in a gap between them. The statistical meaning and operator expression are connected in this way in the authored treatment of average energies.[ref]
If a nonzero vector has not been normalized, use ; the denominator is essential. A global phase cancels between the bra and ket, so and have the same expectation value and outcome probabilities.
The outcome variance measures the spread about this mean, whereas the quantum uncertainty is its standard deviation:
For a pure state, zero variance means that lies entirely in one eigenspace. That eigenspace need not be one-dimensional. Knowing only a mean generally does not determine the entire outcome probability distribution.
For a mixed state, the same formulas use its density matrix , a positive operator with trace one:
A pure state is the special case . For a quantum state ensemble , the expectation value is . This linearity is useful when preparations vary between trials; different quantum state ensembles can have the same density matrix.
These formulas require no operator-domain qualifications in finite dimension. For an unbounded self-adjoint operator, the spectral theorem instead gives a spectral probability measure; a finite mean requires an integrable absolute first moment, and finite variance requires a finite second moment. Writing as an operator inner product additionally requires in the operator domain of . The quadratic form of a positive quantum Hamiltonian explains the useful wider form-domain version.
Local quantum state under objective collapse by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-28
At a spacetime point , the local quantum state is the reduced density operator obtained on spacelike hypersurfaces approaching the past light cone of . It includes the effects of objective collapses in that past light cone and excludes spacelike-separated collapses.
Essential numerical range by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
The essential numerical range consists of limits along unit vectors converging weakly to zero. It is stable under compact perturbations and may be empty for an unbounded operator.
Stationary iterative method for a linear system by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A stationary iteration has the form
with a fixed iteration matrix . It converges for every initial vector exactly when the spectral radius satisfies .
This is an iterative method whose update matrix remains fixed.
Unshifted QR algorithm by Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The unshifted QR algorithm factors and forms , preserving eigenvalues while driving the matrix toward block diagonal form.
This is the zero-shift case of the QR algorithm.

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