Spherical wedge Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
A spherical wedge is the portion of a solid sphere between two meridional half-planes meeting at a dihedral angle , with . Put the common axis along and its azimuthal bisector along . For radius , use spherical coordinates , , . Its volume is .
For constant mass density, reflection symmetries put the centre of mass on the bisector. The first moment is
Dividing by volume gives . It decreases from the limiting value for an infinitesimal wedge to zero for a full sphere.
The curved boundary is a spherical lune. Its outward vector area is . Indeed, its component has the same angular integrals as the first moment, multiplied by ; the other components cancel by symmetry. Its scalar surface area is , which is generally different from the magnitude of its vector area.
Periodic boundaries on a cube give one spinless state per in wave-vector space. Counting the full spherical shell gives . Hard-wall counting in the positive octant gives the same leading volume term.
For independent localized two-state moments of projections along a field, the one-ion partition function is . Its thermal mean gives . A ion has , so the special value additionally assumes . At weak field the SI volume susceptibility is , neglecting demagnetizing corrections.
Square pyramid 2026-10-18
A square pyramid has a square base. If the base edge has length and all four lateral edges have length , the apex lies above the base center. The center-to-vertex distance is , so the Pythagorean theorem gives . Its volume is . When all eight edges have the same length , this reduces to .
Hold the known primary standard inventory fixed, and let be the correct blank-subtracted titre. In the following model, any remaining endpoint offset has been removed from this reference. If a titration endpoint overshoot adds , the inferred titrant concentration is too small:
The denominator grows while the numerator stays fixed. For , the relative effect is approximately , but the displayed fraction is exact for this additive model. An unremoved positive titration blank has the same mathematical effect: replace by . If both remain, replace it by . This analogy concerns their effects on the denominator; it does not mean a blank measures endpoint overshoot.
For the chosen reference titre, an extra gives and relative error . Leaving both a blank and a overshoot gives denominator and relative error .
Figure 1.
Endpoint overshoot and an unremoved positive titration blank both lower the inferred titrant concentration
. Original additive-error model, not measured data. The curves compare reference titres of and . The table uses the selected inventory and reference. Equal extra denominator volumes give equal bias, whether caused by overshoot or an unremoved blank. Details.
For comparison, the same extra on a reference titre gives . The ratio of these error magnitudes is , while the small-error approximation would give . A larger titre reduces the fractional effect of a fixed extra volume; it does not fix unknown purity, incomplete transfer, or an incorrect stoichiometry.
Statistical segment length Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
An effective step length describing a specified chain-count convention: an ideal polymer with counted units has mean-squared end-to-end distance of a polymer chain . If counts freely jointed coarse-grained units, is their Kuhn length. If counts chemical repeat units, the effective incorporates local conformational correlations and is not automatically a physical monomer diameter. A repeat-unit volume is independent information; setting is a scaling approximation.
Integrating galactic stellar mass against a mass function requires . Substitution turns it into . Thus the stellar density is times characteristic number density times characteristic galactic stellar mass, in the same volume convention as the mass function.
Stokes equation Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-14
For a steady incompressible flow of a Newtonian fluid with constant density and constant dynamic viscosity , neglecting inertia in the Navier-Stokes equation gives
The first equation is local force balance; the second is mass conservation. The term is the divergence of the viscous part of the Newtonian fluid stress tensor. The body force has units of force per unit volume, , and equals for uniform gravity. Appropriate boundary data for velocity or traction, together with suitable distant conditions for an exterior flow, complete the problem; a rigid surface normally imposes the no-slip boundary condition.
With uniform gravity, write where the hydrostatic pressure satisfies . Then the disturbance equation is . This removes gravity from the fluid disturbance equation, while the hydrostatic pressure still supplies buoyancy on an immersed body. Omitting it from the total force balance would give the wrong Stokes settling velocity.
Stokes flow Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Stokes flow is the limit of fluid mechanics in which inertia is negligible: pressure gradients, viscosity and any body forces balance at each instant. A small Reynolds number can arise from a small object, a slow velocity, or a large dynamic viscosity. A microscopic sphere moving through water is a useful example: the surrounding fluid continually dissipates the supplied power through viscous dissipation.
Figure 1.
Exact Stokes streamlines around a stationary no-slip sphere in a uniform incident flow
. Details.
The picture is a meridional slice of the three-dimensional axisymmetric flow around a sphere, with the sphere held fixed and the distant fluid moving rightward at speed . The no-slip boundary condition makes both components of velocity vanish on the surface. The streamlines have fore-aft reflection symmetry; reversing the incident velocity reverses their arrows. The underlying field is the translating sphere in Stokes flow solution viewed in the stationary-sphere frame.
For an incompressible flow of a Newtonian fluid with constant dynamic viscosity , the steady Stokes equation is
Here is pressure, is velocity, and is body force per unit volume. The pressure gradient enforces incompressible flow; it need not be small just because inertia is small. At speed and length , the motion-induced pressure gradient has typical scale , corresponding to a disturbance pressure difference of order . See Shreyas Mandre's fluid dynamics notes, sections 9.1.1–9.1.2.
The controlling Reynolds number is
where is density and is kinematic viscosity. The condition suppresses advection of momentum on the length . Rapid changes require an additional check of the viscous diffusion time: small Reynolds number alone does not eliminate the time derivative in the Unsteady Stokes equation.
Two rewards of this limit are the exact Stokes's law for the drag on a sphere and kinematic reversibility of Stokes flow. The first predicts settling velocities and connects to the Stokes–Einstein relation; the second explains why a microswimmer needs a nonreciprocal stroke, as expressed by the scallop theorem. Despite viscous dissipation, reversing the driving can retrace the motion: an especially striking consequence of Linearity of Stokes flow.
George Gabriel Stokes obtained the sphere drag and its terminal velocity in his 1851 investigation of how viscosity changes physical pendulum motion. He also used the slow fall of small water droplets to discuss clouds. The paper was read on 9 December 1850; 1851 is its publication date. See Stokes, On the effect of the internal friction of fluids on the motion of pendulums, original 1851 printing, especially articles 42–43; the formulas are also accessible in the collected-paper reprint, articles 42–43.
A stratified-room plume-exchange model balances the upward volume transported by a warm plume against downward transport by cold wall plumes. A global buoyancy balance relates the source flux to the buoyancy carried out through the vents.
Stroke volume 2026-10-31
Stroke volume is the volume expelled by a ventricle in one contraction. In a time-dependent ventricular elastance model, if end-ejection pressure is and systolic compliance is , the remaining ventricular volume is . Subtracting that from the end-filling volume gives the ejected volume.
Consider an original ideal model: of hydrochloric acid at , titrated with sodium hydroxide at . Treat these numbers as exact model inputs. Assume complete dissociation of an ionic compound, complete strong acid ionization, additive volumes, uniform mixing, and activity coefficients equal to one. Use stipulated , approximately appropriate near . These are calculated pH values, not measurements of these materials.
The chemical equation for neutralization is
Initial acid inventory is , so the equivalence point is . Added water does not change this inventory. But the final volume , including the titrant, determines all concentrations.
Keep self-ionization of water even at the equivalence point. With , define the dimensionless acid excess , hydronium level , and hydroxide level by
The sodium cation and chloride anion inventories fix the electric charge balance , while chemical equilibrium gives . Eliminating yields a quadratic equation with exactly one positive root. For stable calculation on either side, write
The second expression follows by multiplying by ; it avoids subtracting two nearly equal large quantities on the alkaline side. A logarithm acts on the dimensionless , as required by the pH definition.
Figure 1. . Original analytic model for of hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, with . Both panels use the complete electric charge balance and ideal chemical equilibrium. The right panel resolves microlitre additions around the equivalence point. The marked points are calculated, not measured. Details.
At , the excess is in , giving and pH . At , excess hydroxide is in , giving and pH . Neglecting dilution would give the wrong values even far from the equivalence point.
Exactly at , and , giving pH in this model. At and , the same smooth expression gives pH and . The familiar excess-only formulas would predict zero hydronium or zero hydroxide at the equivalence point; retaining self-ionization of water removes that failure. A steep curve is still continuous.
The sensitivity is especially revealing. Differentiating gives
when . At this model's equivalence point, the derivative is about pH units per millilitre. This is a local derivative, not a linear prediction over a whole drop. Real endpoint accuracy also depends on dosing, mixing, measurement uncertainty, temperature, extra reacting chemical species, and nonideal thermodynamic activities.
Submerged weight Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
For a grain of mass density and volume in a fluid of mass density , its effective downward force is , after subtracting buoyancy from weight.
Subtomogram averaging 2026-10-20
subtomogram averaging aligns and combines repeated structures extracted from tomographic volumes. Structural equivalence, orientation coverage and independent validation determine which details are reproducible.
Subtracting the normal-state grand potential fixes the reference constant in the uniform BCS pairing-field effective action. Here has energy units and . The ratio cancels a field-independent determinant phase and produces a convergent high-frequency sum under the same momentum regulator. Differentiation gives the BCS gap equation. For a fixed attractive pairing shell, this is a finite regulated model; an unrestricted continuum contact interaction additionally needs ultraviolet renormalization. Its weak-coupling condensation density uses a single-spin density of states per volume.
Surface energy Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-18
For a liquid interface with constant surface tension , the mechanical surface energy is the energy associated with its surface area :
The additive constant does not affect the work needed to change surface area. For several interfaces with the same surface tension, means their total surface area; the two faces of a thin soap film must both be counted. [ref]
With assumed , creating of one interface requires of reversible work. In the sliding-rim example illustrated under surface tension, moving a rim outwards by creates across the two faces and requires . Independently, multiplying its holding force by the displacement gives the same work.
This makes the preference for a round isolated droplet precise. At fixed volume , the three-dimensional isoperimetric inequality gives
with equality for a sphere. Thus a sphere minimizes surface energy among sufficiently regular closed shapes enclosing the same volume, when surface tension is uniform and other energy contributions are negligible. This is an application of the isoperimetric inequality, rather than a proof of it. Walls, wetting, and gravity can change the shape by adding constraints or other energy contributions. [ref]
The differential rule integrates directly to because surface tension is constant. At fixed liquid volume, decreasing surface area can drive viscous fluid flow; the released surface energy can supply viscous dissipation. This mechanical bookkeeping is useful for predicting which deformations can release energy. If surface tension depends on temperature or composition, distinguish this mechanical area-work relation from the complete interfacial thermodynamic free energy and internal energy.
Place one pair of opposite tetrahedron vertices on the line and the other pair on , with fixed nonzero direction vectors . Let and let be the parameter differences within the two pairs. The scalar triple product of the three edge vectors from one vertex gives the displayed volume. Terms parallel to or vanish in the triple product, leaving only . Sliding either pair along its own line while preserving its separation leaves this volume unchanged. When the two lines are skew lines, it can also be written , where is their shortest distance, the two edge lengths and their direction angle. Intersecting or parallel lines give zero volume because all four vertices are coplanar.
The three-dimensional translational momentum integral is per unit volume, where