Electric chargeElectric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be positive or negative (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectively, by convention). Like charges repel each other and unlike charges attract each other. An object with no net charge is referred to as electrically neutral. Early knowledge of how charged substances interact is now called classical electrodynamics, and is still accurate for problems that do not require consideration of quantum effects.
Electric fieldAn electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either attracting or repelling them. It also refers to the physical field for a system of charged particles. Electric fields originate from electric charges and time-varying electric currents. Electric fields and magnetic fields are both manifestations of the electromagnetic field, one of the four fundamental interactions (also called forces) of nature.
Electric potentialThe electric potential (also called the electric field potential, potential drop, the electrostatic potential) is defined as the amount of work energy needed per unit of electric charge to move this charge from a reference point to the specific point in an electric field. More precisely, it is the energy per unit charge for a test charge that is so small that the disturbance of the field under consideration is negligible.
Electromagnetic fieldAn electromagnetic field (also EM field or EMF) is a classical (i.e. non-quantum) field produced by moving electric charges. It is the field described by classical electrodynamics (a classical field theory) and is the classical counterpart to the quantized electromagnetic field tensor in quantum electrodynamics (a quantum field theory). The electromagnetic field propagates at the speed of light (in fact, this field can be identified as light) and interacts with charges and currents.
Magnetic fieldA magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to the magnetic field. A permanent magnet's magnetic field pulls on ferromagnetic materials such as iron, and attracts or repels other magnets.
Charge densityIn electromagnetism, charge density is the amount of electric charge per unit length, surface area, or volume. Volume charge density (symbolized by the Greek letter ρ) is the quantity of charge per unit volume, measured in the SI system in coulombs per cubic meter (C⋅m−3), at any point in a volume. Surface charge density (σ) is the quantity of charge per unit area, measured in coulombs per square meter (C⋅m−2), at any point on a surface charge distribution on a two dimensional surface.
F-divergenceIn probability theory, an -divergence is a function that measures the difference between two probability distributions and . Many common divergences, such as KL-divergence, Hellinger distance, and total variation distance, are special cases of -divergence. These divergences were introduced by Alfréd Rényi in the same paper where he introduced the well-known Rényi entropy. He proved that these divergences decrease in Markov processes.
Divergence (statistics)In information geometry, a divergence is a kind of statistical distance: a binary function which establishes the separation from one probability distribution to another on a statistical manifold. The simplest divergence is squared Euclidean distance (SED), and divergences can be viewed as generalizations of SED. The other most important divergence is relative entropy (also called Kullback–Leibler divergence), which is central to information theory.
DivergenceIn vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that operates on a vector field, producing a scalar field giving the quantity of the vector field's source at each point. More technically, the divergence represents the volume density of the outward flux of a vector field from an infinitesimal volume around a given point. As an example, consider air as it is heated or cooled. The velocity of the air at each point defines a vector field. While air is heated in a region, it expands in all directions, and thus the velocity field points outward from that region.
Elementary chargeThe elementary charge, usually denoted by or , is the electric charge carried by a single proton or, equivalently, the magnitude of the negative electric charge carried by a single electron, which has charge −1 . The symbol e has another useful mathematical meaning due to which its use as label for elementary charge is avoided in theoretical physics. For example, in quantum mechanics one wants to be able to write compactly plane waves with the use of Euler's number .
Kullback–Leibler divergenceIn mathematical statistics, the Kullback–Leibler divergence (also called relative entropy and I-divergence), denoted , is a type of statistical distance: a measure of how one probability distribution P is different from a second, reference probability distribution Q. A simple interpretation of the KL divergence of P from Q is the expected excess surprise from using Q as a model when the actual distribution is P.
Gaussian unitsGaussian units constitute a metric system of physical units. This system is the most common of the several electromagnetic unit systems based on cgs (centimetre–gram–second) units. It is also called the Gaussian unit system, Gaussian-cgs units, or often just cgs units. The term "cgs units" is ambiguous and therefore to be avoided if possible: there are several variants of cgs with conflicting definitions of electromagnetic quantities and units. SI units predominate in most fields, and continue to increase in popularity at the expense of Gaussian units.
Hartree atomic unitsThe Hartree atomic units are a system of natural units of measurement which is especially convenient for calculations in atomic physics and related scientific fields, such as computational chemistry and atomic spectroscopy. They are named after the physicist Douglas Hartree. Atomic units are often abbreviated "a.u." or "au", not to be confused with the same abbreviation used also for astronomical units, arbitrary units, and absorbance units in other contexts.
IcosahedronIn geometry, an icosahedron (ˌaɪkɒsəˈhiːdrən,-kə-,-koʊ- or aɪˌkɒsəˈhiːdrən) is a polyhedron with 20 faces. The name comes . The plural can be either "icosahedra" (-drə) or "icosahedrons". There are infinitely many non-similar shapes of icosahedra, some of them being more symmetrical than others. The best known is the (convex, non-stellated) regular icosahedron—one of the Platonic solids—whose faces are 20 equilateral triangles. There are two objects, one convex and one nonconvex, that can both be called regular icosahedra.
Divergence theoremIn vector calculus, the divergence theorem, also known as Gauss's theorem or Ostrogradsky's theorem, is a theorem which relates the flux of a vector field through a closed surface to the divergence of the field in the volume enclosed. More precisely, the divergence theorem states that the surface integral of a vector field over a closed surface, which is called the "flux" through the surface, is equal to the volume integral of the divergence over the region inside the surface.
Vertex (geometry)In geometry, a vertex (: vertices or vertexes) is a point where two or more curves, lines, or edges meet. As a consequence of this definition, the point where two lines meet to form an angle and the corners of polygons and polyhedra are vertices. The vertex of an angle is the point where two rays begin or meet, where two line segments join or meet, where two lines intersect (cross), or any appropriate combination of rays, segments, and lines that result in two straight "sides" meeting at one place.
Field (physics)In physics, a field is a physical quantity, represented by a scalar, vector, or tensor, that has a value for each point in space and time. For example, on a weather map, the surface temperature is described by assigning a number to each point on the map; the temperature can be considered at a certain point in time or over some interval of time, to study the dynamics of temperature change. A surface wind map, assigning an arrow to each point on a map that describes the wind speed and direction at that point, is an example of a vector field, i.
Fermionic fieldIn quantum field theory, a fermionic field is a quantum field whose quanta are fermions; that is, they obey Fermi–Dirac statistics. Fermionic fields obey canonical anticommutation relations rather than the canonical commutation relations of bosonic fields. The most prominent example of a fermionic field is the Dirac field, which describes fermions with spin-1/2: electrons, protons, quarks, etc. The Dirac field can be described as either a 4-component spinor or as a pair of 2-component Weyl spinors.
Gluon field strength tensorIn theoretical particle physics, the gluon field strength tensor is a second order tensor field characterizing the gluon interaction between quarks. The strong interaction is one of the fundamental interactions of nature, and the quantum field theory (QFT) to describe it is called quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Quarks interact with each other by the strong force due to their color charge, mediated by gluons. Gluons themselves possess color charge and can mutually interact.
Vector fieldIn vector calculus and physics, a vector field is an assignment of a vector to each point in a space, most commonly Euclidean space . A vector field on a plane can be visualized as a collection of arrows with given magnitudes and directions, each attached to a point on the plane. Vector fields are often used to model, for example, the speed and direction of a moving fluid throughout three dimensional space, such as the wind, or the strength and direction of some force, such as the magnetic or gravitational force, as it changes from one point to another point.
