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Energy resolution specifies the characteristic energy separation or broadening that an instrument can distinguish, with a stated width convention and measurement geometry. Resolving a phonon in inelastic scattering requires measuring a small energy transfer as well as momentum transfer. It is distinct from the incident beam's central energy.

For an initially uniform strip current of half-width $a$, the final balanced energy fraction isThe fraction tends to $1-r+O(r^2)$ for a narrow strip and to $1/(2r)$ for a wide strip. The difference is outgoing inertia-gravity wave energy, consistent with conservation of energy; the infinite-strip energies are interpreted per unit along-strip length.

For a classical three-dimensional harmonic trap of fixed frequencies, $E=3N{k}_{B}T$ and $\mathcal{D}\propto N{T}^{-3}$. Combining $dE={ϵ}_{\mathrm{ev}}dN$ with these equations gives $d\ln \mathcal{D}/d\ln N=4-{ϵ}_{\mathrm{ev}}/(k_{B}T)$. Since evaporation decreases $N$, phase-space density of an atomic gas increases only when the removed mean energy exceeds $4k_{B}T$. Merely lowering temperature requires only ${ϵ}_{\mathrm{ev}}>3k_{B}T$. Changing confinement adds trap work and changes these formulas.

Storing recoverable energy for later use. Energy capacity, maximum power, duration, round-trip efficiency and degradation are independent dimensions of performance; a high specific energy need not imply high power or efficiency.

For a reversible device with flux linkage $\Psi$, electrical power is $I\dot{\Psi }$, so stored energy changes by $dU=Id\Psi$. This reduces to $U=L{I}^2/2$ only for a fixed linear inductance. Hysteresis makes energy path dependent and introduces loss.

With $\Theta =T/T_{\min }>1$, the two-dimensional self-gravitating rod equilibrium has the displayed energy per unit length for the potential reference $\psi (R_e)=-GM\log (V/V_0)$. Integration of $-\rho \psi /2$ gives its gravitational energy; its two-dimensional Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution has kinetic energy $NkT$. At fixed area, differentiation gives $C=Nk[2+2\Theta \log (1-{\Theta }^{-1})+\Theta /(\Theta -1)]$. Expanding the logarithm shows $C/(Nk)=1+{\sum }_{j\ge 3}(j-2)/(j{\Theta }^{j-1})>1$. The energy increases continuously from $-\infty$ to $+\infty$, so there is no finite-energy endpoint or turning point of the regular sequence. This excludes the classical gravothermal catastrophe in this model, while leaving a distinct canonical collapse at or below its minimum temperature.

The energy component of a transferred four-momentum in a specified frame. In fixed-target deep inelastic scattering the target rest frame gives $\nu =E-E^{\prime }$, where $E,E^{\prime }$ are incoming and scattered electron energies. It is frame dependent even though $Q^2=-q^2$ is Lorentz invariant.

Consider identical harmonic oscillators with unit mass, natural angular frequency ${\omega }_0>0$, and positive coupling $\kappa \ll {\omega }_0^2$:An initial impulse on the first gives $x_1(0)=x_2(0)={\dot{x}}_2(0)=0$ and ${\dot{x}}_1(0)=v$. The normal mode coordinates $u=x_1+x_2$ and $w=x_1-x_2$ have angular frequencies ${\omega }_0$ and ${\omega }_a=\sqrt{{\omega }_0^2+2\kappa }$. Solving their initial value problems provesLet $\Delta ={\omega }_a-{\omega }_0\sim \kappa /{\omega }_0$. To leading order in $\kappa /{\omega }_0^2$, sum-to-product identities give the displacement amplitude envelopes $(|v|/{\omega }_0)|\cos (\Delta t/2)|$ and $(|v|/{\omega }_0)|\sin (\Delta t/2)|$. Thus the first nearly complete energy transfer occurs at $\pi /\Delta$, and localization returns at $2\pi /\Delta$. More precisely, at $t=\pi /\Delta$, the first oscillator has exactly zero velocity and residual displacement $\frac{v}{2}(1/{\omega }_0-1/{\omega }_a)\sin ({\omega }_{0}t)$, of order $|v|\kappa /{\omega }_0^3$.

Here transferred energy means kinetic energy plus the uncoupled quadratic potential energy; the coupling potential energy is relatively small. The fast phase need not make the receiving oscillator pass through zero displacement at the transfer time. Expanding $\Delta t$ as small is invalid on the transfer scale $t=O(1/\kappa )$. This lemma complements absolute and signed beat envelopes by keeping that slow phase.

Transport of stellar energy from the interior to escaping radiation, principally by radiative diffusion and convection in ordinary stellar models. Carrying a nonzero luminosity generally requires a nonzero temperature gradient.

The difference of two solutions with the same body force, boundary traction and initial data satisfies a homogeneous elastic equation with zero boundary work. Multiplication by its velocity and integration by parts conserve the displayed positive energy. Zero initial energy forces zero velocity for all times, and zero initial displacement field then forces zero displacement field. Rigid zero-strain motions do not cause nonuniqueness after initial data are fixed. This assumes positive mass density, stable real elastic moduli and sufficient regularity for the energy identity.

Enrico Lucon is an author of NIST Software Package for Obtaining Charpy Transition Curves by Enrico Lucon and others. The report explains fitting and interpreting Charpy impact test measurements across a ductile-to-brittle transition. Absorbed energy, lateral expansion and fracture appearance supply different descriptions of the transition, so the reported transition temperature depends on the chosen criterion.^[ref]

For an equilibrium entropy $S(E,V,N)$ that is concave in energy at fixed volume and particle number, the thermodynamic relation $(\partial S/\partial E{)}_{V,N}=1/T$ gives, wherever the derivatives are finite and invertible,Strict concavity therefore implies positive heat capacity at constant volume. A straight coexistence segment can instead have constant temperature over an energy interval; finite strictly positive heat-capacity conclusions do not apply there.

There is also a direct canonical ensemble statement for a temperature-independent Hamiltonian operator:The numerator is the canonical energy variance. Positivity follows from a variance, without assuming an ideal gas or noninteracting particles.

The concavity hypothesis is essential. Isolated systems with long-range gravitational interactions can have negative heat capacity in a microcanonical ensemble; the familiar virialized-gas example does not belong to a stable canonical branch in contact with an infinite heat bath. A claim that every stable equilibrium has strictly positive heat capacity would erase this ensemble distinction.

For a homogeneous extensive system in thermodynamic equilibrium, the entropy density is entropy per physical volume, $s=S/V$. The thermodynamic Euler relation giveswhere $\rho =U/V$ is energy density, $P$ is pressure, $\mu$ is chemical potential, $n=N/V$ is number density and $T$ is absolute temperature. Here $\rho$ denotes energy density, not mass density; in a relativistic application the energy convention must consistently include the rest-energy paired with the chemical potential.

With several conserved particle numbers, replace $\mu n$ by ${\sum }_i{\mu }_i{n}_i$. The Euler form assumes extensivity and negligible surface terms; it is not an automatic identity for a finite interacting system with appreciable boundary contributions. For a photon gas at equilibrium, $\mu =0$ and $P=\rho /3$, yielding $s=4\rho /(3T)$.

The entropy density of a photon gas is its entropy per physical volume, $s=S/V$. For homogeneous equilibrium vacuum radiation with two states of electromagnetic polarization and zero photon chemical potential,The first equality is the entropy density at zero chemical potential, obtained from the thermodynamic Euler relation $U=TS-pV+{\mu }_{\gamma }{N}_{\gamma }$ with internal energy $U=uV$. The second uses the photon gas equation of state, $u=a_R{T}^4$ and $p=u/3$. If an independently constrained photon number gives a nonzero chemical potential, the general entropy density is $(u+p-{\mu }_{\gamma }{n}_{\gamma })/T$ and $u=a_R{T}^4$ need not hold. This distinction explains why the absence of a conserved number matters for entropy as well as for the spectral shape. ^[ref]

A short first law of thermodynamics check, for neighboring equilibrium states with ${\mu }_{\gamma }=0$, isThe thermodynamic Euler relation fixes the additive normalization. Equivalently, this radiation entropy tends to zero with temperature at fixed volume; no contribution from the containing walls is included. Interpreting $TdS$ as transferred heat and $pdV$ as boundary work requires a reversible thermodynamic process. For a reversible thermodynamic process that is also an adiabatic process, there is no entropy production or entropy exchange, soAn irreversible adiabatic process can produce entropy even without heat exchange, so the word adiabatic alone is insufficient to infer $T^{3}V=\text{constant}$.

For an analytic example, expand an initially equilibrated photon gas reversibly from $V_0$ to $8V_0$, keeping only the same two photon states of electromagnetic polarization. Its temperature halves, its energy density becomes $u_0/16$, its entropy density of a photon gas becomes $s_0/8$, and its total entropy stays $S_0$. The internal energy halves rather than remaining fixed: the missing half leaves as work against radiation pressure,This is a stipulated reversible radiation model, not a report of a piston experiment. Maintaining a real cavity along this path requires controlling wall heat exchange and including the wall heat capacity in any actual apparatus balance.

For a computed scale at stipulated $T=2.725\mathrm{K}$, $s\simeq 2.04122\times 10^{-14}\mathrm{J}{\mathrm{K}}^{-1}{\mathrm{m}}^{-3}$. Combining this with the photon number density givesThis is the total equilibrium radiation entropy divided by its mean photon number, not a separately assigned entropy carried by each labeled particle. During the ideal expansion, $n_{\gamma }\propto T^3$ and $T^{3}V$ is fixed, so the mean number $N_{\gamma }=n_{\gamma }V$ also stays constant. This follows from the path; it was not imposed as the independent number constraint used to establish chemical potential.

The beautiful connection is that expansion lowers each typical photon energy and dilutes the radiation in just the proportions needed to retain its equilibrium spectral shape and total entropy. For the cosmic microwave background, homogeneous expansion of the universe has physical volume proportional to the cube of the scale factor; fixed-species cosmological entropy conservation therefore gives $T\propto a^{-1}$. This describes preservation of an already established Planck photon distribution and connects the FIRAS spectral observation in photon gas to an entropy prediction; FIRAS did not perform a direct entropy measurement. When other equilibrated species disappear and transfer energy into radiation, use the effective number of relativistic entropy degrees of freedom, $g_{\ast s}$: the conserved quantity for the combined sector is $g_{\ast s}{T}^{3}V$, under the corresponding equilibrium and no-entropy production assumptions. A changing species population, separate decoupled sectors or entropy production requires an appropriate entropy balance rather than the pure photon gas formula. ^[ref]

With negligible nuclear or external heating, the stellar structure equations give $L_{\mathrm{int}}=-{\int }_0^{M}T\partial s/\partial tdm$. A nearly isentropic convective interior therefore has $\dot{s}=-L_{\mathrm{int}}/\int Tdm<0$ whenever it radiates. Decreasing specific entropy does not require temperature at every depth to decrease immediately: contraction of an ideal gas can raise its central temperature while total energy is lost.

At fixed volumes and material inventories, two internally equilibrated bodies that exchange only heat within an isolated system have fixed total internal energy $E=E_1+E_2$. Their total entropy isUsing $1/T_i=(\partial S_i/\partial E_i{)}_{V_i,N_i}$, an interior stationary point obeysThus entropy stationarity requires matching thermodynamic temperatures. Positive values of heat capacity at constant volume make this a strict local maximum becauseFor bodies with positive heat capacities throughout the accessible range, this concavity gives at most one interior maximum. This is the stability check behind the equal-temperature condition; see entropy concavity and positive heat capacity. ^[ref]

For thermal equilibration of two finite bodies, entropy from heat capacity givesBody 1 gains about $0.22314355\mathrm{kJ}{\mathrm{K}}^{-1}$ of entropy, while body 2 loses about $0.19361556\mathrm{kJ}{\mathrm{K}}^{-1}$. Total energy is conserved even though total entropy increases. The entropy calculation uses reversible comparison paths between the endpoint states; actual exchange across a finite temperature difference is irreversible.

To construct the plot, vary $T_1$ while enforcing the energy constraint, rather than holding $T_2$ fixed. In numerical units of kelvin, $T_2/\mathrm{K}=(1500-T_1/\mathrm{K})/3$, and the plotted function isHere $\mathcal{S}$ means $S_{\mathrm{tot}}-S_{\mathrm{tot},\mathrm{initial}}$, so its zero is a reference choice. The chain rule yieldsThe unique maximum is at $T_1=T_2=375\mathrm{K}$. The physical trajectory starts at $T_1=300\mathrm{K}$ and moves toward that maximum; the rest of the curve compares other possible energy partitions, not later times in the trajectory.

The contact model also proves the direction of change directly:For $G>0$ and positive temperatures, equality holds exactly at thermal equilibrium. The appealing link is that a dynamical heat transfer law moves the system uphill on the constrained entropy curve, while conservation of energy keeps it on that curve. This predicts both why the endpoint is stable and why the reverse separation into hot and cold bodies cannot happen spontaneously in the isolated system.

For an ideal gas with specific internal energy $c_{v}T$ and Fourier's law heat flux $\mathbf{q}=-k\nabla T$, subtraction of the kinetic-energy balance from total energy gives $\rho c_{v}DT/Dt+p\nabla \cdot \mathbf{u}=\nabla \cdot (k\nabla T)$. The thermodynamic entropy satisfies $TDS/Dt=c_{v}DT/Dt+p\nabla \cdot \mathbf{u}/\rho$, soThe divergence describes entropy transport by heat; the final term is local irreversible production. For $T>0$ and $k\ge 0$ it is nonnegative. In a fixed impermeable thermally insulated container, boundary entropy flux vanishes and mass conservation gives $d\int \rho SdV/dt=\int k|\nabla T{|}^2/T^{2}dV$. Insulation conserves total energy while permitting entropy to increase as temperature gradients relax.

An enzyme is a biological catalyst: it accelerates a chemical reaction and is regenerated after a successful catalytic cycle. Most enzymes are proteins, but catalytic RNA molecules, called ribozymes, also exist. Many reactions needed by a biological cell would proceed too slowly under its ordinary conditions without enzymes. See Cooper, The Cell: the central role of enzymes as biological catalysts.

The biological beauty is selective speed. A biological cell contains many possible reactants; its enzymes help determine which transformations happen on a useful timescale. In metabolism, one step's reaction product can become another step's substrate, so selective catalysts support an organized flow of material.

The ribosome is a striking biological example: the machinery that builds proteins has RNA at its catalytic centre. The complete ribosome contains both RNA and proteins, but its bond-forming active site is built from RNA. Structural evidence established this distinction in Nissen et al., The structural basis of ribosome activity in peptide bond synthesis, Science 289, 920–930 (2000).

Selection occurs at an active site, the region where substrate binding and catalytic chemistry take place. Shape and chemical interactions favour some substrates over others; binding can also reshape the enzyme, an induced fit. Recognition alone is insufficient: holding a substrate extremely tightly need not make it react quickly. Catalysis requires a favourable route through the transition state, the high-barrier configuration between reactants and reaction products. Positioning reactive groups and stabilizing this configuration relative to the bound substrate can lower that barrier. Specificity is often strong, but need not mean exactly one acceptable substrate. See Cooper, The Cell: mechanisms of enzymatic catalysis.

Read the diagram numerically. Its chosen Gibbs free energies are $0$ for the reactants and $-10\mathrm{kJ}\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$ for the reaction products. The uncatalysed peak is $60\mathrm{kJ}\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$, whereas the catalysed peak is $40\mathrm{kJ}\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$. The forward free-energy barriers are therefore $60$ and $40\mathrm{kJ}\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$; viewed from the reaction products, the reverse barriers are $70$ and $50\mathrm{kJ}\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$. Both decrease by $20\mathrm{kJ}\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$, while the endpoint difference stays $-10\mathrm{kJ}\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$. These are constructed values, not measurements of a particular enzyme.

This separates chemical kinetics from chemical equilibrium. An enzyme changes how rapidly the system approaches chemical equilibrium; it does not change the equilibrium constant for the same overall chemical reaction under the same conditions. Faster catalysis therefore supplies no extra driving energy. In a biological cell, continuing supply of reactants and removal of reaction products can nevertheless sustain a net flow: the surroundings keep that system away from chemical equilibrium. See IUBMB, Symbolism and terminology in enzyme kinetics: basic definitions.

Some enzymes require a cofactor, an additional nonprotein component such as a metal ion or a small organic molecule. Organic helpers are often called coenzymes; they can assist transfers that the protein alone cannot readily perform. The cofactor may remain bound or exchange with the surroundings, depending on the system. A coenzyme can be chemically changed in one reaction and regenerated by another: regeneration of the enzyme does not mean every helper is unchanged in that individual reaction. Some enzymes need no additional cofactor. See Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell: small molecules associated with proteins and Alberts et al., activated carriers and their regeneration.

How much faster does adding substrate make a reaction? Enzyme kinetics gives a quantitative answer when a model's assumptions fit. For an illustrative reaction obeying Michaelis-Menten kinetics, use the Michaelis-Menten equation with substrate concentration $s$, limiting reaction rate $V_{\max }$ and Michaelis constant $K_M$. At $s/K_M=0.1$, substitution gives $v/V_{\max }=0.1/1.1=1/11\approx 0.0909$. At $s/K_M=1$, it gives $1/2$; at $s/K_M=10$, it gives $10/11\approx 0.9091$. Thus a hundredfold increase in substrate between the first and last examples yields only a tenfold increase in reaction rate.

For a chosen $V_{\max }=110\mu \mathrm{M}\mathrm{mi}{\mathrm{n}}^{-1}$, those fractions mean reaction rates of $10$, $55$ and $100\mu \mathrm{M}\mathrm{mi}{\mathrm{n}}^{-1}$. Doubling substrate from $10K_M$ to $20K_M$ raises the normalized rate only from $10/11$ to $20/21\approx 0.9524$, a relative increase of about $4.76\%$. In this simplest model, the catalytic machinery is already nearly fully occupied. Doubling the amount of active enzyme instead doubles $V_{\max }$ and the predicted reaction rates at fixed free substrate concentration, provided the other conditions are unchanged. This distinction helps decide whether additional substrate or additional catalytic capacity could improve throughput.

The interpretation has limits. The simplest Michaelis-Menten kinetics assumes a single substrate, fixed active enzyme amount, a suitable quasi-steady-state approximation, and initial measurements with negligible reverse reaction from accumulated reaction product. Substantial depletion, interacting binding sites, or inhibition by excess substrate can invalidate this model. Within it, $K_M$ is the substrate concentration giving half the limiting reaction rate; it is not generally the binding dissociation constant $K_d$. See IUBMB, enzyme kinetics: steady-state approximation and substrate dissociation and IUBMB, Michaelis-Menten and non-Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Measuring activity also requires specified temperature, pH and necessary cofactor availability: a weak signal can reflect unsuitable conditions rather than little enzyme. See Brooks et al., Assay Guidance Manual: basics of enzymatic assays for HTS.

For epicyclic motion in a Keplerian shearing sheet, write $x-x_0=\mathrm{Re}(A{e}^{-i\Omega t})$. The energy of the radial harmonic oscillator per unit mass is $E_{\mathrm{epi}}={\Omega }^2|A{|}^2/2$. The full horizontal Jacobi energy in a shearing sheet also includes the negative guiding-center term $-3{\Omega }^2{x}_0^2/8$.

Equal laboratory recoil angles constrain outgoing momenta, not equality of masses. In units $c=1$, take an incoming mass $m$ with energy $2m$ striking a stationary mass $2m$. The final momenta $m(13/8,\sqrt{3}/2,\sqrt{57}/8,0)$ and $m(19/8,\sqrt{3}/2,-\sqrt{57}/8,0)$ conserve four-momentum and have mass shells $m^2$ and $4m^2$. Both trajectories make angle $\arctan (\sqrt{19}/4)$ with the incident axis. This is a concrete counterexample to inferring equal masses from equal outgoing angles alone.