Spin (physics)Spin is an intrinsic form of angular momentum carried by elementary particles, and thus by composite particles such as hadrons, atomic nuclei, and atoms. Spin should not be understood as in the "rotating internal mass" sense: spin is a quantized wave property. The existence of electron spin angular momentum is inferred from experiments, such as the Stern–Gerlach experiment, in which silver atoms were observed to possess two possible discrete angular momenta despite having no orbital angular momentum.
Critical theoryA critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals. It argues that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation. Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychoanalysis, sociology, history, communication theory, philosophy and feminist theory.
Metric tensor (general relativity)In general relativity, the metric tensor (in this context often abbreviated to simply the metric) is the fundamental object of study. The metric captures all the geometric and causal structure of spacetime, being used to define notions such as time, distance, volume, curvature, angle, and separation of the future and the past. In general relativity, the metric tensor plays the role of the gravitational potential in the classical theory of gravitation, although the physical content of the associated equations is entirely different.
Spin foamIn physics, the topological structure of spinfoam or spin foam consists of two-dimensional faces representing a configuration required by functional integration to obtain a Feynman's path integral description of quantum gravity. These structures are employed in loop quantum gravity as a version of quantum foam. Loop quantum gravity The covariant formulation of loop quantum gravity provides the best formulation of the dynamics of the theory of quantum gravity – a quantum field theory where the invariance under diffeomorphisms of general relativity applies.
Spin–statistics theoremIn quantum mechanics, the spin–statistics theorem relates the intrinsic spin of a particle (angular momentum not due to the orbital motion) to the particle statistics it obeys. In units of the reduced Planck constant ħ, all particles that move in 3 dimensions have either integer spin or half-integer spin. In a quantum system, a physical state is described by a state vector. A pair of distinct state vectors are physically equivalent if they differ only by an overall phase factor, ignoring other interactions.
Poincaré disk modelIn geometry, the Poincaré disk model, also called the conformal disk model, is a model of 2-dimensional hyperbolic geometry in which all points are inside the unit disk, and straight lines are either circular arcs contained within the disk that are orthogonal to the unit circle or diameters of the unit circle. The group of orientation preserving isometries of the disk model is given by the projective special unitary group PSU(1,1), the quotient of the special unitary group SU(1,1) by its center {I, −I}.
Free particleIn physics, a free particle is a particle that, in some sense, is not bound by an external force, or equivalently not in a region where its potential energy varies. In classical physics, this means the particle is present in a "field-free" space. In quantum mechanics, it means the particle is in a region of uniform potential, usually set to zero in the region of interest since the potential can be arbitrarily set to zero at any point in space. The classical free particle is characterized by a fixed velocity v.
Poincaré conjectureIn the mathematical field of geometric topology, the Poincaré conjecture (UKˈpwæ̃kæreɪ, USˌpwæ̃kɑːˈreɪ, pwɛ̃kaʁe) is a theorem about the characterization of the 3-sphere, which is the hypersphere that bounds the unit ball in four-dimensional space. Originally conjectured by Henri Poincaré in 1904, the theorem concerns spaces that locally look like ordinary three-dimensional space but which are finite in extent. Poincaré hypothesized that if such a space has the additional property that each loop in the space can be continuously tightened to a point, then it is necessarily a three-dimensional sphere.
History of electromagnetic theoryThe history of electromagnetic theory begins with ancient measures to understand atmospheric electricity, in particular lightning. People then had little understanding of electricity, and were unable to explain the phenomena. Scientific understanding into the nature of electricity grew throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the work of researchers such as Coulomb, Ampère, Faraday and Maxwell.
Poincaré complexIn mathematics, and especially topology, a Poincaré complex (named after the mathematician Henri Poincaré) is an abstraction of the singular chain complex of a closed, orientable manifold. The singular homology and cohomology groups of a closed, orientable manifold are related by Poincaré duality. Poincaré duality is an isomorphism between homology and cohomology groups. A chain complex is called a Poincaré complex if its homology groups and cohomology groups have the abstract properties of Poincaré duality.
