CombustionCombustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combustion does not always result in fire, because a flame is only visible when substances undergoing combustion vaporize, but when it does, a flame is a characteristic indicator of the reaction. While activation energy must be supplied to initiate combustion (e.g.
Ideal gas lawThe ideal gas law, also called the general gas equation, is the equation of state of a hypothetical ideal gas. It is a good approximation of the behavior of many gases under many conditions, although it has several limitations. It was first stated by Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron in 1834 as a combination of the empirical Boyle's law, Charles's law, Avogadro's law, and Gay-Lussac's law. The ideal gas law is often written in an empirical form: where , and are the pressure, volume and temperature respectively; is the amount of substance; and is the ideal gas constant.
Ambient pressureThe ambient pressure on an object is the pressure of the surrounding medium, such as a gas or liquid, in contact with the object. Within the atmosphere, the ambient pressure decreases as elevation increases. By measuring ambient atmospheric pressure, a pilot may determine altitude (see pitot-static system). Near sea level, a change in ambient pressure of 1 millibar is taken to represent a change in height of . The ambient pressure in water with a free surface is a combination of the hydrostatic pressure due to the weight of the water column and the atmospheric pressure on the free surface.
F-ratio (oceanography)In oceanic biogeochemistry, the f-ratio is the fraction of total primary production fuelled by nitrate (as opposed to that fuelled by other nitrogen compounds such as ammonium). The ratio was originally defined by Richard Eppley and Bruce Peterson in one of the first papers estimating global oceanic production. This fraction was originally believed significant because it appeared to directly relate to the sinking (export) flux of organic marine snow from the surface ocean by the biological pump.
Peano curveIn geometry, the Peano curve is the first example of a space-filling curve to be discovered, by Giuseppe Peano in 1890. Peano's curve is a surjective, continuous function from the unit interval onto the unit square, however it is not injective. Peano was motivated by an earlier result of Georg Cantor that these two sets have the same cardinality. Because of this example, some authors use the phrase "Peano curve" to refer more generally to any space-filling curve.
Special right triangleA special right triangle is a right triangle with some regular feature that makes calculations on the triangle easier, or for which simple formulas exist. For example, a right triangle may have angles that form simple relationships, such as 45°–45°–90°. This is called an "angle-based" right triangle. A "side-based" right triangle is one in which the lengths of the sides form ratios of whole numbers, such as 3 : 4 : 5, or of other special numbers such as the golden ratio.
Pascal's triangleIn mathematics, Pascal's triangle is a triangular array of the binomial coefficients arising in probability theory, combinatorics, and algebra. In much of the Western world, it is named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, although other mathematicians studied it centuries before him in Persia, India, China, Germany, and Italy. The rows of Pascal's triangle are conventionally enumerated starting with row at the top (the 0th row). The entries in each row are numbered from the left beginning with and are usually staggered relative to the numbers in the adjacent rows.
Coal analysisCoal analysis techniques are specific analytical methods designed to measure the particular physical and chemical properties of coals. These methods are used primarily to determine the suitability of coal for coking, power generation or for iron ore smelting in the manufacture of steel. Coal comes in four main types or ranks: lignite or brown coal, bituminous coal or black coal, anthracite and graphite. Each type of coal has a certain set of physical parameters which are mostly controlled by moisture, volatile content (in terms of aliphatic or aromatic hydrocarbons) and carbon content.
