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heat capacity

(Encyclopedia)heat capacity or thermal capacity, ratio of the change in heat energy of a unit mass of a substance to the change in temperature of the substance; like its melting point or boiling point, the heat cap...

Richter scale

(Encyclopedia)Richter scale rĭkˈtər [key], measure of the magnitude of seismic waves from an earthquake. Devised in 1935 by the American seismologist Charles F. Richter (1900–1985) and technically known as the...

synchrotron radiation

(Encyclopedia)synchrotron radiation, in physics, electromagnetic radiation emitted by high-speed electrons spiraling along the lines of force of a magnetic field (see magnetism). Depending on the electron's energy ...

vibration

(Encyclopedia)vibration, in physics, commonly an oscillatory motion—a movement first in one direction and then back again in the opposite direction. It is exhibited, for example, by a swinging pendulum, by the pr...

Shawnee Prophet

(Encyclopedia)Shawnee Prophet, 1775?–1837?, Native North American of the Shawnee tribe; brother of Tecumseh. His Native American name was Tenskwautawa. He announced himself as a prophet bearing a revelation from ...

Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich

(Encyclopedia)Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich yôsˈĭf səmo͞oēlˈəvĭch shklŏfˈskē [key], 1916–85, Soviet astronomer. He was head of the department of radio-astronomy at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute,...

physical fitness

(Encyclopedia)physical fitness, combined good health and physical development. The object of any program of physical fitness is to maximize an individual's health, strength, endurance, and skill relative to age, se...

Telesto

(Encyclopedia)Telesto təlĕsˈtō [key], in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn XIII (or S13), Telesto is an irregularly shaped (nonspherical) body measuring a...

zodiacal light

(Encyclopedia)zodiacal light or zodiacal band, a faint band of light sometimes seen in the western sky just after sunset in the spring, extending up from the horizon at the point where the sun has just set, or in t...

liquefaction

(Encyclopedia)liquefaction, change of a substance from the solid or the gaseous state to the liquid state. Since the different states of matter correspond to different amounts of energy of the molecules making up t...