Propellants are substances that provide thrust to vehicles or devices by undergoing combustion or a chemical reaction to generate gas. They are commonly used in various applications, including rocketry, spacecraft propulsion, and some types of engines. Propellants can be categorized into two main types: 1. **Liquid Propellants**: These consist of a fuel and an oxidizer that are stored in separate tanks and mixed in the combustion chamber.
A Lyot stop is a specific optical element used in various types of imaging systems, particularly in the context of astronomical telescopes and spectrometers. Named after the French physicist Paul Lyot, it functions as a spatial filter to improve the quality of the light that passes through by blocking unwanted portions of the light wavefront. In practical terms, the Lyot stop is typically placed at or near the focal plane of the telescope or optical system.
The Pierson–Moskowitz spectrum is a mathematical model that describes the energy distribution of wind-generated surface waves on the ocean. It was developed by researchers John P. Pierson and L. Moskowitz in the 1960s. This spectrum is particularly relevant for fully developed seas, where the wind has been blowing consistently over a sufficient duration and distance, allowing the waves to reach a state of equilibrium.
Submersion, in the context of coastal management, refers to the process by which coastal land is inundated by rising sea levels or is affected by other water-related phenomena. This can occur due to natural processes, such as erosion or high tides, but it is increasingly linked to anthropogenic factors, especially climate change leading to rising sea levels from melting ice caps and thermal expansion of seawater.
A turbidite is a type of sedimentary deposit that forms from the sediment-laden water flow, known as turbidity currents. These currents occur when sediment is stirred up, typically on the continental slope or deep-sea environments, and flow downslope due to gravity. As the turbidity current travels, it typically loses energy and deposits its load of sediment, which results in a characteristic layering of sediments.
Wave base refers to the depth in the water column at which the energy of surface waves is negligible. Below this depth, the oscillations caused by the waves diminish significantly, effectively marking the point where wave-induced movement has little to no impact on the sediments or organisms living at that depth. Typically, wave base is located at about half the wavelength of the waves. For example, if the wavelength of a wave is 20 meters, the wave base would be approximately 10 meters deep.
Wave shoaling is the process by which waves increase in height and decrease in wavelength as they move from deeper to shallower water. This phenomenon occurs due to the interaction between the wave energy and the ocean floor as the water depth decreases. As waves travel into shallower water, the bottom of the wave begins to interact with the sea bed, causing the wave to slow down.
In hydrology, "discharge" refers to the volume of water that flows through a given cross-section of a river, stream, or channel over a specific period of time. It is typically measured in cubic meters per second (m³/s) or cubic feet per second (cfs). Discharge is an essential parameter in understanding water flow, as it helps to quantify how much water is moving in a water body.
A wind wave model is a mathematical representation used to simulate and predict the generation, propagation, and decay of wind-generated waves on the surface of oceans and large bodies of water. These models play a crucial role in understanding wave behavior, which is important for various applications, including marine navigation, coastal engineering, and understanding sediment transport or erosion.
The electric dipole moment is a measure of the separation of positive and negative charges within a system. It is a vector quantity that indicates the strength and direction of an electric dipole.
Logarithmic scales are a way of measuring and representing values that can cover a wide range, where each unit increase on the scale corresponds to a multiplication of the quantity rather than a simple addition. This means that on a logarithmic scale, each step represents a power of a base value, typically 10 (common logarithm) or \( e \) (natural logarithm).
Physical constants are quantities in physics that are universally recognized and remain constant in nature, regardless of the conditions or situations in which they are observed. These constants serve as fundamental building blocks in various scientific equations and theories, providing a framework for understanding physical phenomena. Some well-known examples of physical constants include: 1. **Speed of Light (c)**: Approximately \( 3.00 \times 10^8 \) meters per second. It represents the speed at which light travels in a vacuum.
The attenuation coefficient is a measure of how much a particular material reduces the intensity of a beam of electromagnetic radiation, such as light, X-rays, or gamma rays, as it passes through that material. It quantifies the level of attenuation — that is, the decrease in intensity or amplitude of the radiation due to scattering and absorption.
API gravity is a measure of the density of petroleum liquids relative to water. It is expressed in degrees API (°API), which is a specific gravity scale developed by the American Petroleum Institute (API). The API gravity is used to categorize crude oil and other petroleum products based on their density and is an important factor in the oil and gas industry. The formula for calculating API gravity is: \[ \text{API Gravity} = \frac{141.
Characteristic admittance is a parameter used in electrical engineering, particularly in the analysis of transmission lines and wave propagation in circuits. It is defined as the complex ratio of the phasor current to the phasor voltage along a transmission line.
Circular dichroism (CD) is a spectroscopic technique used to measure the differential absorption of left-handed and right-handed circularly polarized light by optically active substances. This property is typically associated with chiral molecules, such as proteins, nucleic acids, and some small organic compounds. In CD spectroscopy, when a chiral molecule interacts with circularly polarized light, it can absorb one polarization more than the other, leading to a measurable difference in the intensity of the transmitted light.
In physics, particularly in fluid dynamics, "circulation" is a measure of the rotation of a fluid around a closed curve. It is defined mathematically as the line integral of the velocity field of the fluid around a closed loop.
Effective dose is a measure used to quantify the health risk associated with exposure to ionizing radiation. It takes into account not only the amount of radiation absorbed by individuals (dose) but also the biological effect of that radiation on different tissues and organs in the body. This is particularly important because various types of radiation (such as alpha, beta, and gamma radiation) and different organs have different sensitivities to radiation damage.
In the context of physics, intensity is generally defined as the amount of energy transferred per unit area per unit time. It is a measure of the power (energy per unit time) received or transmitted through a surface, often associated with waves, such as light waves, sound waves, or other forms of electromagnetic radiation.
Electrical resistance and conductance are two fundamental concepts in electrical engineering and physics that describe how materials respond to the flow of electric current. ### Electrical Resistance **Definition**: Electrical resistance is a measure of the opposition that a material offers to the flow of electric current. It is denoted by the symbol \( R \). **Unit**: The unit of resistance is the ohm (Ω).

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
We have two killer features:
  1. topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculus
    Articles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
    • a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
    • a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
  2. local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:
    This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
    Figure 2.
    You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either https://OurBigBook.com or as a static website
    .
    Figure 3.
    Visual Studio Code extension installation
    .
    Figure 4.
    Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation
    .
    Figure 5.
    Web editor
    . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
    Video 4.
    OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo
    . Source.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact