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electron

(Encyclopedia)electron, elementary particle carrying a unit charge of negative electricity. Ordinary electric current is the flow of electrons through a wire conductor (see electricity). The electron is one of the ...

Cherenkov radiation

(Encyclopedia)Cherenkov radiation or Cerenkov radiation [for P. A. Cherenkov], light emitted by a transparent medium when charged particles pass through it at a speed greater than the speed of light in the medium. ...

haze

(Encyclopedia)haze, suspension in the atmosphere of minute dust or salt particles that are not individually seen but that nevertheless reduce visibility. So-called damp haze and dry haze produce different optical e...

mass spectrograph

(Encyclopedia)mass spectrograph, device used to separate electrically charged particles according to their masses; a form of the instrument known as a mass spectrometer is often used to measure the masses of isotop...

charge

(Encyclopedia)charge, property of matter that gives rise to all electrical phenomena (see electricity). The basic unit of charge, usually denoted by e, is that on the proton or the electron; that on the proton is d...

coagulation

(Encyclopedia)coagulation kōăgˌyo͞olāˈshən [key], the collecting into a mass of minute particles of a solid dispersed throughout a liquid (a sol), usually followed by the precipitation or separation of the s...

teleportation, in physics

(Encyclopedia)teleportation, in physics, the transfer of key properties from one particle (or group of particles) to another a significant distance apart without a physical connection between the two particles (or ...

Houellebecq, Michel

(Encyclopedia)Houellebecq, Michel mēshĕlˈ wĕlˈbĕk [key], b. 1958– or 1956–, French author, perhaps France's best-known contemporary novelist, b. Réunion as Michel Thomas. A literary pessimist and master ...

uncertainty principle

(Encyclopedia)uncertainty principle, physical principle, enunciated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, that places an absolute, theoretical limit on the combined accuracy of certain pairs of simultaneous, related measur...

dust, atmospheric

(Encyclopedia)dust, atmospheric, minute particles slowly settling or suspended by slight currents and existing in varying amounts in all air. There is least dust at high levels over the ocean and most at low levels...