Emission spectrumThe emission spectrum of a chemical element or chemical compound is the spectrum of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation emitted due to an electron making a transition from a high energy state to a lower energy state. The photon energy of the emitted photon is equal to the energy difference between the two states. There are many possible electron transitions for each atom, and each transition has a specific energy difference. This collection of different transitions, leading to different radiated wavelengths, make up an emission spectrum.
FluorescenceFluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, than the absorbed radiation. A perceptible example of fluorescence occurs when the absorbed radiation is in the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum (invisible to the human eye), while the emitted light is in the visible region; this gives the fluorescent substance a distinct color that can only be seen when the substance has been exposed to UV light.
Ordinal numberIn set theory, an ordinal number, or ordinal, is a generalization of ordinal numerals (first, second, nth, etc.) aimed to extend enumeration to infinite sets. A finite set can be enumerated by successively labeling each element with the least natural number that has not been previously used. To extend this process to various infinite sets, ordinal numbers are defined more generally as linearly ordered labels that include the natural numbers and have the property that every set of ordinals has a least element (this is needed for giving a meaning to "the least unused element").
Large countable ordinalIn the mathematical discipline of set theory, there are many ways of describing specific countable ordinals. The smallest ones can be usefully and non-circularly expressed in terms of their Cantor normal forms. Beyond that, many ordinals of relevance to proof theory still have computable ordinal notations (see ordinal analysis). However, it is not possible to decide effectively whether a given putative ordinal notation is a notation or not (for reasons somewhat analogous to the unsolvability of the halting problem); various more-concrete ways of defining ordinals that definitely have notations are available.
Epsilon numberIn mathematics, the epsilon numbers are a collection of transfinite numbers whose defining property is that they are fixed points of an exponential map. Consequently, they are not reachable from 0 via a finite series of applications of the chosen exponential map and of "weaker" operations like addition and multiplication. The original epsilon numbers were introduced by Georg Cantor in the context of ordinal arithmetic; they are the ordinal numbers ε that satisfy the equation in which ω is the smallest infinite ordinal.
First-countable spaceIn topology, a branch of mathematics, a first-countable space is a topological space satisfying the "first axiom of countability". Specifically, a space is said to be first-countable if each point has a countable neighbourhood basis (local base). That is, for each point in there exists a sequence of neighbourhoods of such that for any neighbourhood of there exists an integer with contained in Since every neighborhood of any point contains an open neighborhood of that point, the neighbourhood basis can be chosen without loss of generality to consist of open neighborhoods.
Second-countable spaceIn topology, a second-countable space, also called a completely separable space, is a topological space whose topology has a countable base. More explicitly, a topological space is second-countable if there exists some countable collection of open subsets of such that any open subset of can be written as a union of elements of some subfamily of . A second-countable space is said to satisfy the second axiom of countability. Like other countability axioms, the property of being second-countable restricts the number of open sets that a space can have.
