Label the initial state 1, the end of compression 2, the end of constant-pressure heating 3, and the end of adiabatic expansion 4. The volume sequence is , with . The Diesel cycle has a compression adiabat , a horizontal constant-pressure heat-input segment , an expansion adiabat , and a vertical constant-volume cooling segment .
Figure 1. . Original dimensionless example with V2/V1=0.2, V3/V1=0.4 and gamma=1.4. The curved segments are reversible adiabats, the upper horizontal segment adds heat at fixed pressure and the right vertical segment rejects heat at fixed volume. The enclosed area is the positive net work output. Details.
For an ideal gas, a reversible adiabat obeys , so it falls more steeply than an isotherm. The expansion adiabat lies above the compression adiabat at equal volume between and , giving a clockwise cycle with positive work output.
For one mole, , and constant heat capacities satisfy . The specified diatomic-gas model has
A reversible adiabatic process satisfies . Constant-pressure expansion satisfies . Applying these in order gives
Every volume ratio is dimensionless, so the expressions have units of temperature. For the intended volume ordering, the minimum temperature is and the maximum is .
Start with the fundamental relation at fixed material amount, , and expand entropy in independent variables :
The last equality uses the supplied Maxwell relation. Consequently
For the excluded-volume ideal gas, , so the bracket vanishes:
Once depends only on temperature, cannot depend on volume either. Its stipulated temperature independence therefore makes it a constant, giving with arbitrary energy reference . Excluded volume changes the pressure without adding the volume-dependent attractive internal energy that a more general interacting-gas model might have.
For a reversible adiabatic change, , equivalently . Substitute :
Integration, with fixed positive reference values , gives
Since and ,
The relation applies to the quasistatic reversible adiabat. Adiabatic heat isolation alone does not enforce it for an irreversible process which generates entropy. The shifted volume , rather than itself, is the appropriate coordinate in this model.
An equation of state relates equilibrium state variables such as pressure, volume, temperature and material amount. At fixed composition, it reduces the number of independent thermodynamic variables. It does not by itself specify all caloric properties: information such as heat capacity or internal energy is also needed.
At a liquid-gas first-order transition, an equilibrium isotherm can contain a constant-pressure interval in which changing total volume changes the phase fractions. A metastable single-phase extrapolation can instead show a region with ; that region has negative isothermal compressibility and is mechanically unstable. Thermodynamic phase coexistence requires equal temperature, pressure and chemical potential, and a consistent free-energy description replaces the unstable region by coexistence. For an appropriate analytic fluid equation of state, a liquid-gas critical point occurs where .
These tests diagnose the phase behaviour represented by that equation of state. They do not guarantee detection of every possible transition involving an additional order parameter which the mechanical equation omits.
For the given one-mole model,
At fixed positive temperature its isotherm is an ideal-gas hyperbola shifted right by : pressure diverges as and tends to zero as . Higher temperatures give higher pressure at any fixed allowed volume.
Figure 1. . Original dimensionless isotherms with a common vertical asymptote at V=b. They are monotonically decreasing and have no coexistence plateau or critical inflection. Details.
For positive , the volume is the effective volume available to molecular motion. Thus describes excluded-volume repulsion or an effective incompressible molecular core. It is a molar volume in this one-mole equation, not necessarily the literal sum of molecular geometric volume. Setting recovers the ideal gas law. No attractive-energy term is included.
Let L be the vessel initially containing argon and R the vessel initially containing helium. Both have volume and fixed temperature , and the aperture has area . The incoming and outgoing rates of each species must be considered separately. For species ,
Thus its density difference relaxes exponentially with time constant
The two-vessel effusive mixing solution for the four densities is
Using atomic masses of approximately and atomic mass units gives . Helium therefore transfers faster. Each species eventually reaches in each vessel, but its transient is different. In particular, the total density temporarily rises in the initially argon vessel and falls in the initially helium vessel, before both return to .
Figure 1.
Species densities during effusive mixing of initially separated argon and helium
. Original solutions of the equal-volume, equal-temperature rate equations, with the helium rate faster by sqrt(10). The dashed total densities show the temporary pressure imbalance even though both temperatures are equal. Each species ultimately has density n0/2 in each vessel. Details.
For unequal maintained temperatures , replace the rate equation by
With each species' total density sum still , its final densities and relaxation time are
Every species has the same final density ratio and partial-pressure ratio . Thus there is no permanent composition separation in this ideal steady state, although the rates remain mass dependent. A maintained hot side has lower density and higher pressure. Equal particle rates do not imply thermal equilibrium: atoms arriving from the hotter side carry more energy, so external heating and cooling are required to hold different temperatures. The model assumes thin-hole effusion, local equilibrium within each vessel and negligible aperture volume.
Denote the heated and cold vessels by subscripts . For argon, the opposing effusive particle rates are equal in the steady state:
Because and ,
This is thermal transpiration in the free-molecular limit. It fixes a ratio; the initial conditions determine the absolute pressures.
For the stated two identical vessels, take their fixed volume to be and the combined system sealed. Initially it contains atoms. Hence
Let . Combining this inventory with gives the closed-vessel thermal transpiration result
Heating makes the hot side less dense but at higher pressure. Both expressions reduce to when . For a small imposed temperature rise , the pressure difference starts as .
If instead the cold vessel is interpreted as an externally maintained pressure reservoir with , the answer becomes . That alternative requires the fixed-pressure reservoir assumption; it does not conserve the initial particle inventory of two sealed equal-volume vessels. Merely describing the vessels as large does not keep their pressures fixed through the redistribution. The pressures in the boxed answer assume the natural closed-vessel interpretation.
For a classical dilute ideal gas in thermal equilibrium, the probability of a single-particle velocity is proportional to the Boltzmann factor for kinetic energy, . Velocities with speed between and fill a spherical shell of velocity-space volume . The normalized Maxwell speed distribution is therefore
The factor counts states, rather than representing an extra Boltzmann energy factor.
Set and use . Normalization cancels in ratios, so the given recurrence gives
Consequently
The root mean square speed is larger than the mean speed, consistent with the positive variance of the speed distribution.
Molecular transport across gradients. A gas can transport momentum, thermal energy and species abundance even when its average bulk velocity is zero. Molecules arriving at a point carry properties acquired near their preceding collisions. A small gradient makes the populations arriving from opposite sides slightly different, producing transport from larger to smaller values of the carried property. A continuum transport law requires a mean free path small compared with the gradient length, and relaxation times short compared with the observation time.
For a dilute hard-sphere gas,
where is molecular collision diameter. Both speed and collision distance matter: high speed alone does not determine a transport coefficient.
A simple kinetic estimate makes the common structure explicit. For a quantity carried per particle, a molecule moving at angle to brings approximately . Expanding to first order and averaging an isotropic velocity distribution gives
since and . This mean-free-path argument estimates the coefficients; a detailed collision calculation changes their numerical prefactors and distinguishes different relaxation rates.
Momentum transport and viscosity. For a shear flow with mean velocity , the transported directed momentum per molecule is . The net flux of momentum in the direction is
Here is dynamic viscosity in . The associated shear stress on a material surface has the corresponding traction sign convention; the flux carries momentum from the faster-moving layer towards the slower-moving one. The kinematic viscosity is , with units . Viscosity smooths velocity gradients, and the lost ordered mechanical energy becomes heat.
Heat transport. Let be the thermal heat capacity per molecule, in . Substituting gives Fourier's law,
Thermal conductivity has units . For a monatomic gas, translational equipartition gives . Rotational or vibrational excitations in other gases can increase the energy carried per molecule, while collisions govern how those modes exchange energy. A temperature gradient can therefore be transported differently from directed momentum even when the dimensional estimates look similar.
Species transport. For a dilute tracer or a mixture with prescribed total density and negligible bulk flow, molecules diffuse down concentration gradients. The first-gradient number flux is Fick's first law,
The diffusivity has units ; multiplying number flux by the species mass gives mass flux. More generally one uses diffusion flux relative to the mixture's bulk velocity and specifies mass or mole fractions. The approximation is not a claim that an arbitrary pure-gas pressure gradient can remain at rest while only a Fick flux acts. In a mixture, collision cross-sections and relative molecular speeds, including the reduced mass, determine the species diffusivities.
Dependence on density and temperature. The kinetic estimates of gas transport coefficients predict, for fixed collision diameter and molecular heat capacity,
Thus dynamic viscosity and thermal conductivity are approximately density independent in the dilute continuum regime. Reducing density reduces the number of carriers but increases their mean free path in the same proportion. At fixed density all three estimates grow as ; at fixed pressure, and
Kinematic viscosity and thermal diffusivity also grow roughly as at fixed pressure in this model. Real interaction potentials make effective collision cross-sections temperature dependent, and internal excitations change . Dense-gas correlations and boundaries invalidate the simple cancellation. In particular, when the mean free path approaches the apparatus scale, transport becomes free molecular; it cannot be described by extending the same local, pressure-independent Fourier and viscosity coefficients indefinitely.
Heat diffusion equation. For a stationary gas with constant volumetric heat capacity , constant thermal conductivity and negligible compression work, the energy balance in any fixed volume is
Here is a possible heat generation rate per volume. The divergence theorem and Fourier's law yield
Thermal diffusivity has units and is of order . In a moving or compressing gas, the material derivative, pressure-volume work and viscous heating must also enter the internal-energy equation. The displayed pure diffusion equation describes the approximation in which those effects are absent or negligible.
Representative solutions. With no source, a steady one-dimensional slab between temperatures at has and uniform heat flux . Thus a constant spatial gradient transports heat without changing local temperature in time when the boundaries continually supply and remove it.
For an infinite medium and an initial sinusoidal temperature perturbation,
Short spatial wavelengths decay faster, and the characteristic smoothing length after time is . A finite slab with both ends held at has a sine expansion with factors ; its slowest relaxation time is .
An instantaneous heat input per unit transverse area at in an otherwise uniform infinite medium gives the Gaussian solution
Its integral conserves the deposited heat. The peak falls as while its width grows as ; diffusion redistributes energy instead of transporting a sharp front at a single velocity.
Finally, a semi-infinite body initially at and held at surface temperature from has
It has and approaches far from the boundary at finite time. These solutions demonstrate steady conduction, mode decay, spreading of localized heat and boundary-driven diffusion. Their idealized behaviour at extremely short times or arbitrarily long distances must be interpreted within the continuum regime rather than as an assertion of instantaneous microscopic communication.
Magnetic field and force. A steady electric current produces a magnetic field. In vacuum the Biot-Savart law gives
The Lorentz force on the charge carriers transfers force to the material carrying them. The resulting force on a current element of another circuit is , or, for a continuous current distribution, the magnetic force per unit volume is .
For two long parallel straight wires a distance apart, Ampère's law gives . Therefore
The force is attractive for parallel currents and repulsive for opposite currents, by the cross product rule. Its units are . This approximation neglects wire thickness and end effects; a complete circuit includes its return current. Element-by-element forces need not form an isolated Newton's-third-law pair, but complete stationary circuits have balanced mutual forces when the entire system is included.
Energy description. For two linear coupled circuits the magnetic energy is
Here is a mechanical coordinate and the signed mutual inductance. At prescribed currents, the generalized force is if the self-inductances do not vary. This positive derivative is obtained from magnetic coenergy, or by including the electrical sources' work; differentiating with a minus sign at fixed currents would omit that source work. At prescribed flux linkages the force instead equals the negative derivative of stored magnetic energy with those linkages fixed. The geometry thus determines both inductance and mechanical force.
Integral conservation. Electric charge cannot be created by ordinary transport. For a fixed volume , outward current reduces the enclosed charge:
Here has units and has units . Applying the divergence theorem to an arbitrary volume gives the local continuity equation
It is local charge conservation: a net outflow must be accompanied by depletion. In a steady state, . Integrating over a small circuit junction then gives Kirchhoff's current law. During a transient the junction can accumulate charge and the incoming and outgoing conduction currents need not yet match.
Consistency with Maxwell's equations. In vacuum, take the divergence of the Ampère-Maxwell equation:
Gauss's law, , reproduces the continuity equation. The displacement current term makes these equations consistent for time-dependent charge distributions, such as a charging capacitor. It is not a stream of free charges across the insulating gap. In matter, and give the analogous conservation law for free charge; total charge also includes bound charge.
From molecular dipoles to macroscopic fields. A dielectric contains charges which remain bound to its atoms or molecules. An applied electric field displaces positive and negative charge centres and can orient permanent electric dipoles. The electric polarization is electric dipole moment per unit volume, in . Its associated bound charge is
at the boundary of the polarized material, where points outward. A uniform electric polarization has no volume bound charge, but generally has surface bound charge. The electric field remains the force per unit test charge; it includes the fields of both free and bound charges.
Introducing the electric displacement field packages the free-charge source separately:
For a homogeneous linear isotropic dielectric,
The electric susceptibility is dimensionless; the permittivity has units . This is a constitutive approximation. An anisotropic dielectric requires a permittivity tensor, while a nonlinear dielectric need not have electric polarization proportional to electric field. The field in these equations is the macroscopic field, not necessarily the local field at an individual molecule.
Interfaces. Let point from medium 1 into medium 2. Integrating Gauss's law over a thin pillbox, and the electrostatic curl equation around a thin loop, gives the electrostatic interface boundary conditions
Thus normal electric displacement is continuous when there is no free surface charge, whereas tangential electric field is continuous even if the permittivity changes. Normal electric field generally jumps because the interface carries bound charge. The electric potential is continuous for an ordinary interface without an ideal dipole sheet. These conditions, together with Laplace's equation in each homogeneous charge-free region, determine the field.
Energy and electrical sources. Reversibly assembling free charge requires incremental work . For a linear dielectric whose response can be reversibly integrated from zero field, the electrostatic energy is
This includes the material polarization response, rather than simply using everywhere. In a capacitor, . Inserting a dielectric increases capacitance. At fixed charge the stored energy decreases. At fixed voltage the stored field energy increases, but the voltage source supplies ; the appropriate mechanical energy including that source changes by . Both cases predict attraction of dielectric into the capacitor. A force calculation must state which electrical quantity is fixed. A lossy or hysteretic dielectric also dissipates energy, so the reversible quadratic expression does not describe its full history.
Shape and depolarization. Suppose the dielectric is surrounded by vacuum and the distant imposed electric field is . Bound surface charge produces a depolarization field. For a uniformly polarized ellipsoid, along a principal axis,
Here is the depolarization factor of a dielectric ellipsoid. This self-consistent field explains why the same material responds differently in different shapes.
An infinite slab with electric field normal to its faces has , giving ; its opposite surface bound charges reduce the internal field. For electric field parallel to the faces, , giving . End effects are neglected.
A very long circular rod in an axial electric field has negligible depolarization away from its ends, so . In a transverse electric field the infinite-cylinder solution has , giving . To see the latter directly, take the applied field along . The interior and exterior electric potentials can be written and . Continuity of potential and normal electric displacement at gives .
For a sphere of radius , and
For example, write and . Continuity of potential gives , and continuity of normal electric displacement gives . Solving yields and . The potential is that of the electric dipole moment above. For all these induced effects vanish; as becomes very large the normal-field sphere and slab approach the corresponding conductor field exclusion. The ideal infinitely long rod in an exactly axial imposed field has a different, singular end-free limit.
Equilibrium radiation and cavity frequencies. A blackbody absorbs all incident radiation at every frequency and direction. In thermal equilibrium its emission spectrum depends only on its temperature. Radiation inside an isothermal absorbing cavity, sampled through a small aperture that hardly disturbs equilibrium, realizes black-body radiation to a good approximation. Microscopic absorption and emission establish the equilibrium distribution; a perfectly reflecting wall is the convenient idealization used to count the modes once that distribution is specified.
In a rectangular electromagnetic cavity, the wave equation and perfect conductor wall boundary conditions select component wavenumbers , , . Combining the vacuum dispersion relation and gives
For example, electric-field components can have the spatial dependence
For three positive indices, Gauss's law requires , leaving two independent polarizations of an electromagnetic wave.
Index qualification. The original paper describes the indices as positive integers. That describes the three-nonzero-index family but omits valid electromagnetic modes with exactly one zero index, which have one polarization of an electromagnetic wave. For instance, with , , only above remains; it is normal to the top and bottom faces and vanishes at the side walls. Two zero indices give no nontrivial cavity field. The omitted one-zero-index family does not affect the leading three-dimensional mode count, but is essential to the thin-cavity limit below. Retaining the paper's strict positivity restriction for every mode would instead give a thickness gap and would not yield its requested two-dimensional power law.
Three-dimensional mode count. A lattice cell in positive space has volume , where . In a continuum approximation, a shell of radius and thickness contains its positive octant, multiplied by two polarizations:
Using gives
For a finite cavity the exact density of states is discrete; this formula is its bulk continuum limit, appropriate when many modes contribute and wall corrections are small.
Mean photon number. A mode is a quantum harmonic oscillator with thermal excitation energies , . The zero-point energy does not enter its thermal occupation. Put . Its partition function and mean occupation are
This is the Bose-Einstein distribution with zero photon chemical potential: equilibrium absorption and emission do not conserve photon number.
Thermal energy. Multiply the density of states by the mean excitation energy and integrate:
The substitution isolates all the dependence on cavity dimensions and temperature:
Expanding gives an integral . Hence
This is the thermal energy only, excluding the zero-point contribution. The three-dimensional continuum regime requires large compared with the geometric level spacings in all three directions.
Spectral sketch. The spectral energy density per unit ordinary frequency is Planck's law,
At small frequency it rises as , while at large frequency it decays exponentially. Raising temperature increases the spectrum at every fixed positive frequency, moves the peak to larger frequency in proportion to , and increases the integrated area in proportion to . A plot per unit wavelength has a different peak position because the integration variable changes.
Figure 1.
Planck spectral energy density at three temperatures on common frequency and energy-density scales
. Original plots of the frequency spectrum, with temperatures in the ratios 1:1.5:2. The dimensionless horizontal axis is hν/(kBTref), and the vertical scale is common to all curves. The higher-temperature peak moves right and the area grows as T to the fourth power. Details.
Thin-cavity radiation. Let . The relevant low-temperature window is
Nonzero thickness indices are then thermally suppressed, while many in-plane modes are populated. The family has one polarization of an electromagnetic wave. Its allowed in-plane wavenumbers form a lattice of cell area ; a quarter of a circular shell therefore contains
Thus the dimensional crossover of thermal cavity radiation gives
The integral is by the same geometric-series argument. A model with a different number of independent polarizations of an electromagnetic wave changes the prefactor but not the scaling. For a cavity with fixed finite , cooling still further eventually freezes its lowest in-plane mode as well: the strict thermal energy is exponentially suppressed. The requested area law is the intermediate quasi-two-dimensional regime, not an arbitrarily low-temperature continuum limit.
Distinguish electrical current density from heat flux . Uniform current across the circular section gives
by Ohm's law. The local Joule heating rate is electrical work per unit volume and time:
For a segment of length , integration gives , confirming the usual resistor power. The model takes electrical conductivity constant and ignores temperature-induced current redistribution.
Origin of diffusion. In a material near local thermal equilibrium, microscopic carriers transfer energy from hotter regions to colder regions. On distances long compared with their mean free path and times long compared with relaxation times, the local constitutive law is Fourier's law,
Combining this temperature-gradient-driven flux with local conservation of energy produces a diffusion equation. This description assumes diffusive thermal conduction; it is not generally valid for ballistic transport, and flow would add advective transport.
Energy balance with heating. Choose any fixed volume , let be its uniform volumetric heat capacity and its heat generation rate per unit volume. The rate of increase of internal energy equals heat generation minus outward heat flux:
Since is arbitrary, for constant thermal conductivity
The ratio is the thermal diffusivity in . Here is in , in and in , so both right-hand terms have units . If thermal conductivity varies with position or temperature, the divergence must be retained rather than replacing it by .
Three phase coexistence curves meet at the triple point, where ice, liquid water and water vapour have equal chemical potential. In the ordinary-pressure region, the low-temperature phase is ice, the high-pressure moderate-temperature phase is liquid, and the low-pressure high-temperature phase is vapour. The triple point is approximately
Below , warming stable ordinary ice crosses the sublimation boundary directly into vapour; there is no intervening stable liquid. Above , melting and then boiling can occur. The liquid–vapour curve terminates at the liquid-gas critical point, approximately and , beyond which there is no liquid–vapour phase boundary.
The distinctive feature is the negative slope of the ordinary ice–water melting line. The Clapeyron equation gives
Melting increases entropy but reduces volume because ordinary ice is less dense than liquid water, so and . Increasing pressure consequently lowers the melting temperature locally. Sublimation and vaporization both increase volume and entropy, giving positive slopes. The following original schematic shows these signs; it is not a quantitative fit and omits the additional high-pressure ice polymorphs.
A dielectric responds to an electric field mainly by displacing or orienting bound charges, rather than by sustaining a steady conduction current. The polarization density is electric dipole moment per unit volume. It creates bound charge
Separating these charges from free charge motivates
For an isotropic linear dielectric, , so
The electric susceptibility describes material polarization and is not the magnetic susceptibility. More generally it is a tensor and can depend on frequency, field strength and temperature.
Electronic polarization displaces an electron cloud relative to its nucleus; ionic polarization displaces positive and negative ions; orientational polarization partially aligns permanent molecular dipoles against thermal disorder. For independent permanent moments of magnitude , weak-field orientational response gives when local-field corrections and interactions are negligible. This explains a common inverse-temperature contribution without asserting that every dielectric follows that law.
At a static interface, and the tangential electric field is continuous. Bound surface charge is already included through . For a homogeneous filled capacitor, , and a reversible linear dielectric stores energy density . At fixed voltage, insertion raises the stored field energy but the voltage source also supplies energy; force arguments must include that source. At fixed charge the capacitor energy instead decreases on insertion.
At frequencies too high for a polarization mechanism to follow the field, its contribution weakens. A complex permittivity represents dissipative dielectric loss as well as phase lag; the sign of its imaginary part depends on the time convention. Strong fields can cause nonlinear response or dielectric breakdown, beyond the reversible linear model.
Magnetization and field response. A magnetic material contains microscopic magnetic moments associated with electron spin and orbital motion. The magnetization is magnetic dipole moment per unit volume. In SI the macroscopic fields satisfy
Here separates free-current excitation from the material response. A uniform isotropic linear material has , giving
This constant scalar magnetic permeability model is useful only within its linear range. Crystals can have a susceptibility tensor; strongly magnetic materials depend on field and magnetic history. For a finite specimen the internal also includes its demagnetizing field. In a uniformly magnetized ellipsoid, along a principal axis, so sample shape affects the apparent susceptibility.
Diamagnetic and paramagnetic response. Diamagnetism is a weak negative susceptibility caused by induced orbital response opposing the applied field. It occurs in all matter but can be masked by larger positive contributions. Closed-shell materials such as bismuth or many organic compounds show it clearly. Ordinary diamagnetism is often only weakly temperature dependent; superconducting flux exclusion is a separate collective phenomenon and is not described by an arbitrarily small negative susceptibility.
Paramagnetism arises when available magnetic moments partially align with a field. Thermal disorder prevents complete alignment at weak fields. For independent localized moments of magnitude , the classical weak-field result is
where the second expression uses in a weakly magnetic sample. Thus localized moments obey a Curie law in this regime. Quantum angular momentum changes the coefficient to the appropriate expression and gives saturation at strong field. Conduction electrons instead exhibit Pauli paramagnetism: only states near the Fermi surface can change spin populations, so a degenerate gas has a nearly temperature-independent response. Its orbital diamagnetism must also be included for a full metallic susceptibility.
Collective magnetic order. Exchange interactions can favor parallel alignment, producing ferromagnetism below the Curie temperature. Iron, cobalt and nickel are familiar examples. A material may contain regions of spontaneous magnetization, or magnetic domains, while having little net external moment because the domains point in different directions. Applied fields move domain walls and rotate moments; at large fields the magnetization approaches saturation. Pinning and energy barriers make this process hysteretic. Remanence is the magnetization left after removing the driving field, and coercivity measures the reverse field needed to bring the chosen response back to zero.
The area of a closed – loop is the energy dissipated per unit volume per quasistatic cycle, , with positive dissipated magnitude. Consequently the magnetic permeability is neither one universal constant nor enough information to describe a ferromagnet: differential magnetic permeability , saturation and hysteresis all matter. Above the ordering temperature the spontaneous moment disappears, and a Curie–Weiss law is often an appropriate approximate paramagnetic description away from the critical region.
In antiferromagnetism, ordered opposing sublattices have equal moments and cancel macroscopically in the ideal compensated case. The order disappears above the Néel temperature. In ferrimagnetism, opposing sublattices have unequal moments and leave a net magnetization. Ferrites combine ferrimagnetic response with relatively high electrical resistivity, making them valuable when eddy-current losses would be substantial in a metallic core.
Electromagnets and engineering choice. A coil supplies free-current magnetomotive force . For a simple uniform magnetic path, Ampère's law gives and flux . A high-magnetic permeability soft magnetic core concentrates flux and reduces the current required for a given field. With an air gap ,
Even a short gap can dominate the magnetic reluctance. The approximate attractive force across one uniform gap is , obtained from the field energy, with fringing neglected.
Soft magnetic materials have small coercivity and narrow hysteresis loops; they suit relays, electrical transformer cores and controllable electromagnets. Hard magnetic materials retain their magnetization and suit permanent magnets. Laminating metallic cores breaks large eddy-current loops; ferrites are useful at higher frequencies because of their resistivity. Increasing current cannot increase indefinitely through the linear formula: core saturation, coil heating and leakage limit performance. A good design selects material for the field amplitude, switching frequency and acceptable loss, rather than simply choosing the largest quoted magnetic permeability.
A spatially uniform external gravitational acceleration moves a body's centre of mass without stretching it. Tidal forces arise from the variation of that acceleration across the body. Let a distant mass lie at distance along unit vector , and let denote position relative to the body's centre. Subtract the centre's acceleration. To first order,
The tidal tensor is . It stretches along the line to the source with eigenvalue and compresses in the two perpendicular directions with eigenvalues . Its trace vanishes outside the source, consistently with Laplace's equation for the gravitational potential.
After removal of the constant and uniform-acceleration terms, the tidal potential is
An ideal equilibrium ocean on a sphere of radius follows an equipotential of the body's gravity plus this perturbation. For surface gravity , the leading displacement is
up to a constant fixing total water volume. The quadrupolar form produces bulges on both the near and far sides; the far-side bulge follows from differential acceleration, without postulating a repulsive gravitational force.
The Moon and Sun both raise terrestrial tides, with relative strength set mainly by , rather than by the total gravitational pull . Their contributions reinforce near new and full Moon to produce spring tides, and partly cancel near quadrature to produce neap tides. Earth's rotation relative to the tidal pattern gives a strong semidiurnal component in the simplest geometry. Real tide heights and timing depend on ocean depth, coastlines, basin resonances, Coriolis acceleration, friction and the declination of the forcing bodies. Tidal dissipation produces phase lags and torques, exchanging rotational and orbital angular momentum and gradually altering the spin and orbit. The equilibrium bulge is therefore a useful starting model, not an exact local tide forecast.