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blackbody

(Encyclopedia)blackbody, in physics, an ideal black substance that absorbs all and reflects none of the radiant energy falling on it. Lampblack, or powdered carbon, which reflects less than 2% of the radiation fall...

gas laws

(Encyclopedia)gas laws, physical laws describing the behavior of a gas under various conditions of pressure, volume, and temperature. Experimental results indicate that all real gases behave in approximately the sa...

superfluidity

(Encyclopedia)superfluidity, tendency of liquid helium below a temperature of 2.19K to flow freely, even upward, with little apparent friction. Helium becomes a liquid when it is cooled to 4.2K. Special methods...

kinetic-molecular theory of gases

(Encyclopedia)kinetic-molecular theory of gases, physical theory that explains the behavior of gases on the basis of the following assumptions: (1) Any gas is composed of a very large number of very tiny particles ...

low-temperature physics

(Encyclopedia)low-temperature physics, science concerned with the production and maintenance of temperatures much below normal, down to almost absolute zero, and with various phenomena that occur only at such tempe...

Fahrenheit temperature scale

(Encyclopedia)Fahrenheit temperature scale fârˈənhītˌ [key], temperature scale in which the temperature difference between two reference temperatures, the melting and boiling points of water, is divided into 1...

thermodynamics

(Encyclopedia)thermodynamics, branch of science concerned with the nature of heat and its conversion to mechanical, electric, and chemical energy. Historically, it grew out of efforts to construct more efficient he...

heat

(Encyclopedia)heat, nonmechanical energy in transit, associated with differences in temperature between a system and its surroundings or between parts of the same system. The study of heat and its relationship ...
 

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