Topic Review
Ton 618
Coordinates: 12h 28m 24.97s, +31° 28′ 37.7″ Ton 618 is a hyperluminous, broad-absorption-line, radio-loud quasar and Lyman-alpha blob located near the border of the constellations Canes Venatici and Coma Berenices, with the projected comoving distance of approximately 18.2 billion light-years from Earth. It possesses one of the most massive black holes ever found, with a mass of 66 billion M☉.
  • 38.2K
  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Polar Moment of Inertia
The polar moment (of inertia), also known as second (polar) moment of area, is a quantity used to describe resistance to torsional deformation (deflection), in cylindrical (or non-cylindrical) objects (or segments of an object) with an invariant cross-section and no significant warping or out-of-plane deformation. It is a constituent of the second moment of area, linked through the perpendicular axis theorem. Where the planar second moment of area describes an object's resistance to deflection (bending) when subjected to a force applied to a plane parallel to the central axis, the polar second moment of area describes an object's resistance to deflection when subjected to a moment applied in a plane perpendicular to the object's central axis (i.e. parallel to the cross-section). Similar to planar second moment of area calculations ([math]\displaystyle{ I_x }[/math],[math]\displaystyle{ I_y }[/math], and [math]\displaystyle{ I_{xy} }[/math]), the polar second moment of area is often denoted as [math]\displaystyle{ I_z }[/math]. While several engineering textbooks and academic publications also denote it as [math]\displaystyle{ J }[/math] or [math]\displaystyle{ J_z }[/math], this designation should be given careful attention so that it does not become confused with the torsion constant, [math]\displaystyle{ J_t }[/math], used for non-cylindrical objects. Simply put, the polar moment of inertia is a shaft or beam's resistance to being distorted by torsion, as a function of its shape. The rigidity comes from the object's cross-sectional area only, and does not depend on its material composition or shear modulus. The greater the magnitude of the polar moment of inertia, the greater the torsional resistance of the object.
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  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Names of the Days of the Week
The names of the days of the week in many languages are derived from the names of the classical planets in Hellenistic astrology, which were in turn named after contemporary deities, a system introduced by the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity. In some other languages, the days are named after corresponding deities of the regional culture, either beginning with Sunday or with Monday. In the international standard ISO 8601, Monday is treated as the first day of the week.
  • 26.5K
  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Impact of Nanotechnology
The impact of nanotechnology extends from its medical, ethical, mental, legal and environmental applications, to fields such as engineering, biology, chemistry, computing, materials science, and communications. Major benefits of nanotechnology include improved manufacturing methods, water purification systems, energy systems, physical enhancement, nanomedicine, better food production methods, nutrition and large-scale infrastructure auto-fabrication. Nanotechnology's reduced size may allow for automation of tasks which were previously inaccessible due to physical restrictions, which in turn may reduce labor, land, or maintenance requirements placed on humans. Potential risks include environmental, health, and safety issues; transitional effects such as displacement of traditional industries as the products of nanotechnology become dominant, which are of concern to privacy rights advocates. These may be particularly important if potential negative effects of nanoparticles are overlooked. Whether nanotechnology merits special government regulation is a controversial issue. Regulatory bodies such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Health and Consumer Protection Directorate of the European Commission have started dealing with the potential risks of nanoparticles. The organic food sector has been the first to act with the regulated exclusion of engineered nanoparticles from certified organic produce, firstly in Australia and the UK, and more recently in Canada , as well as for all food certified to Demeter International standards
  • 11.2K
  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
History of Measurement
The earliest recorded systems of weights and measures originate in the 3rd or 4th millennium BC. Even the very earliest civilizations needed measurement for purposes of agriculture, construction, and trade. Early standard units might only have applied to a single community or small region, with every area developing its own standards for lengths, areas, volumes and masses. Often such systems were closely tied to one field of use, so that volume measures used, for example, for dry grains were unrelated to those for liquids, with neither bearing any particular relationship to units of length used for measuring cloth or land. With development of manufacturing technologies, and the growing importance of trade between communities and ultimately across the Earth, standardized weights and measures became critical. Starting in the 18th century, modernized, simplified and uniform systems of weights and measures were developed, with the fundamental units defined by ever more precise methods in the science of metrology. The discovery and application of electricity was one factor motivating the development of standardized internationally applicable units.
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  • 03 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Timoshenko-Ehrenfest Beam Theory
The Timoshenko-Ehrenfest beam theory was developed by Stephen Timoshenko and Paul Ehrenfest early in the 20th century. The model takes into account shear deformation and rotational bending effects, making it suitable for describing the behaviour of thick beams, sandwich composite beams, or beams subject to high-frequency excitation when the wavelength approaches the thickness of the beam. The resulting equation is of 4th order but, unlike Euler–Bernoulli beam theory, there is also a second-order partial derivative present. Physically, taking into account the added mechanisms of deformation effectively lowers the stiffness of the beam, while the result is a larger deflection under a static load and lower predicted eigenfrequencies for a given set of boundary conditions. The latter effect is more noticeable for higher frequencies as the wavelength becomes shorter (in principle comparable to the height of the beam or shorter), and thus the distance between opposing shear forces decreases. Rotary inertia effect was introduced by Bresse and Rayleigh. If the shear modulus of the beam material approaches infinity—and thus the beam becomes rigid in shear—and if rotational inertia effects are neglected, Timoshenko beam theory converges towards ordinary beam theory.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Electron Rest Mass
The electron rest mass (symbol: me) is the mass of a stationary electron, also known as the invariant mass of the electron. It is one of the fundamental constants of physics. It has a value of about 9.109×10−31 kilograms or about 5.486×10−4 daltons, equivalent to an energy of about 8.187×10−14 joules or about 0.5110 MeV.
  • 10.0K
  • 31 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Computational Chemistry Methods
The main objective of computational chemistry is to solve chemical problems by simulating chemical systems (molecular, biological, materials) in order to provide reliable, accurate and comprehensive information at an atomic level. To this end, there are two main methodological families: those based on quantum chemical methods and those based on molecular mechanics. The former are methods in which the electrons are explicitly accounted for, while in the latter their presence is hidden in the force field. 
  • 9.1K
  • 17 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Relative Hour (Jewish Law)
Relative hour (Hebrew singular: shaʿah zǝmanit / שעה זמנית; plural: shaʿot - zǝmaniyot / שעות זמניות), sometimes called halachic hour, seasonal hour and variable hour, is a term used in rabbinic Jewish law that assigns 12 hours to each day and 12 hours to each night, all throughout the year. A relative hour has no fixed radical, but changes with the length of each day - depending on summer (when the days are long and the nights are short), and on winter (when the days are short and the nights are long). Even so, in all seasons a day is always divided into 12 hours, and a night is always divided into 12 hours, which inevitably makes for a longer hour or a shorter hour. All of the hours mentioned by the Sages in either the Mishnah or Talmud, or in other rabbinic writings, refer strictly to relative hours. Another feature of this ancient practice is that, unlike the standard modern 12-hour clock that assigns 12 o'clock pm for noon time, in the ancient Jewish tradition noon time was always the sixth hour of the day, whereas the first hour began with the break of dawn, by most exponents of Jewish law, and with sunrise by the Vilna Gaon and Rabbi Hai Gaon. 12:o'clock am (midnight) was also the sixth hour of the night, whereas the first hour of the night began when the first three stars appeared in the night sky.
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  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Astronomy in the Medieval Islamic World
Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (9th–13th centuries), and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and later in the Far East and India. It closely parallels the genesis of other Islamic sciences in its assimilation of foreign material and the amalgamation of the disparate elements of that material to create a science with Islamic characteristics. These included Greek, Sassanid, and Indian works in particular, which were translated and built upon. Islamic astronomy played a significant role in the revival of Byzantine and European astronomy following the loss of knowledge during the early medieval period, notably with the production of Latin translations of Arabic works during the 12th century. Islamic astronomy also had an influence on Chinese astronomy and Malian astronomy. A significant number of stars in the sky, such as Aldebaran, Altair and Deneb, and astronomical terms such as alidade, azimuth, and nadir, are still referred to by their Arabic names. A large corpus of literature from Islamic astronomy remains today, numbering approximately 10,000 manuscripts scattered throughout the world, many of which have not been read or catalogued. Even so, a reasonably accurate picture of Islamic activity in the field of astronomy can be reconstructed.
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  • 24 Nov 2022
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