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supersymmetry

(Encyclopedia)supersymmetry, in physics, theory concerning the relationship of the elementary particles called boson to those known as fermions, and vice versa, and linking the four fundamental forces. In supersymm...

Cayley, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Cayley, Arthur kāˈlē [key], 1821–95, English mathematician. He was admitted to the bar in 1849. In 1863 he was appointed first Sadlerian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. His researches, whi...

complementarity principle

(Encyclopedia)complementarity principle, physical principle enunciated by Niels Bohr in 1928 stating that certain physical concepts are complementary. If two concepts are complementary, an experiment that clearly i...

Brockhouse, Bertram

(Encyclopedia)Brockhouse, Bertram, 1918–2003, Canadian physicist, b. Lethbridge, Alta. Educated at the Univ. of British Columbia and Univ. of Toronto (Ph.D., 1950), he was a research officer (1950–59) and head ...

Energy, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)Energy, United States Department of, executive department of the federal government responsible for coordinating national activities relating to the production, regulation, marketing, and conservation...

Ehrenfest, Paul

(Encyclopedia)Ehrenfest, Paul poul āˈrənfĕst [key], 1880–1933, Austrian physicist. In 1904, Ehrenfest received his doctorate in theoretical physics in Vienna and married the Russian mathematician Tatyana Alex...

laser

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Ordinary light sources produce incoherent light, while a laser produces a beam of coherent light. laser [acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation], device for the cr...

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 ...

Wineland, David Jeffrey

(Encyclopedia)Wineland, David Jeffrey, 1944–, American physicist, b. Milwaukee, Wis., Ph.D. Harvard, 1970. Wineland has been a researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Univ. of Col...

mass, in physics

(Encyclopedia)mass, in physics, the quantity of matter in a body regardless of its volume or of any forces acting on it. The term should not be confused with weight, which is the measure of the force of gravity (se...