Bond-dissociation enthalpy 2026-10-13
A bond-dissociation enthalpy is the molar enthalpy change for the specified homolysis at temperature , with reactant and products in specified standard states. Its usual units are . The superscript specifies standard states; it does not fix to room temperature.[ref]
Write for each species' molar thermal enthalpy increment. With an energy per parent molecule,Here is the Avogadro constant. The thermal increments include translational kinetic energy, molecular rotation, thermally excited molecular vibration and electronic states when populated, and the contribution to enthalpy. They are additional to the zero-point energies already included in . If values of standard enthalpy of formation at the same are available, Hess's law gives the same quantity as .
Units alone do not identify the convention. Multiplying either or by the Avogadro constant gives molar energy, but does not add thermal enthalpy. One electronvolt per dissociation corresponds to . A spectroscopic wavenumber represents energy , using the Planck constant and speed of light ; corresponds to .[ref]
Fundamental Physical Constants — Complete Listing by National Institute of Standards and Technology and others. SI defining constants h, c, e and Avogadro constant; conversions calculated from them
Cavendish experiment 2026-09-28
The Cavendish experiment measures the weak Newtonian gravitational field between laboratory masses with a torsion balance, and can be used to determine the gravitational constant.
Infinite square well Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-13
The infinite square well is an ideal confinement model with potential energy for and infinite walls outside. The walls impose Dirichlet boundary conditions and a vanishing exterior wavefunction. Inside, the time-independent Schrödinger equation isThe first wall removes the cosine term; the second requires , hence . The solution is identically zero and cannot satisfy wavefunction normalization. Each energy eigenstate has interior nodes of a standing wave, at for . More curvature costs more kinetic energy, explaining the growth. The positive ground-state energy is a confinement effect: a constant zero-energy wavefunction cannot satisfy both walls and remain normalized.
For an Electron with mass in a box of length , use and . These constants are from the 2022 CODATA adjustment. [ref]. Substitution givesDoubling quarters every energy eigenvalue; doubling halves them. This scaling makes the particle in a box useful for estimating confinement energies before attempting a more realistic calculation. A finite square well permits exterior tails for bound states and has only finitely many bound energy eigenstates. For an Electron, the scalar box calculation assumes fixed spin and no spin-dependent interactions.
For the ground state, the probability of finding the particle in the middle half of the box is fully computable:Thus half the available length contains about of the probability. The figure contrasts the signed wavefunctions with their nonnegative probability densities: a negative lobe is an amplitude with opposite quantum phase, not negative probability.
An equal quantum superposition of the first two energy eigenstates gives a simple example of moving density:Its density period is for the Electron box above. At the cross term enhances the left side; at it vanishes; at it enhances the right side. More quantitatively,which takes the values , , and at those times. Orthogonality keeps the total probability one throughout. An energy measurement still returns or with equal probabilities: changing position density arises from relative quantum phase, not changing populations. A mixed state describing a statistical mixture with those populations has the constant probability density ; it lacks this matter-wave interference term.
Parallel-plate capacitor 2026-10-14
A parallel-plate capacitor consists of two parallel electrical conductors with overlapping area and separation . If the gap is small compared with both plate widths and is filled by a uniform material of positive permittivity , its capacitance is approximatelyThis neglects the fringing field of a capacitor near the plate edges. The interior electric field points from the plate of positive electric charge to the plate of negative electric charge, and is approximately uniform. [ref].
For a worked vacuum example, stipulate , , and vacuum permittivity . This rounds the value in Fundamental Physical Constants — Complete Listing by National Institute of Standards and Technology and others. Within the approximation,At terminal electric potential difference , the electric field magnitude is , the plate electric charge magnitude is , and the capacitor energy is . These numbers use the stipulated rounded vacuum permittivity; finite plates also have corrections from the fringing field of a capacitor.
The formula makes design changes easy to predict: doubling the overlapping area doubles the capacitance, and halving the gap doubles the capacitance, with permittivity fixed and the fringing field of a capacitor neglected. Doubling permittivity also doubles capacitance if the material uniformly fills the gap and remains linear. This lets a compact device store more separated electric charge at the same terminal electric potential difference.
The short derivation uses surface charge density . In the interior, Gauss's law gives electric field magnitude . The electric potential difference is , so dividing by gives . A narrow curved capacitor gap has the same leading local approximation when its width is much less than the curvature radius.
Vacuum permittivity Created 2026-09-29 Updated 2026-10-05
Vacuum permittivity is the electromagnetic constant appearing in Coulomb's law and the SI vacuum Maxwell equations.


