Gravitation

Settling and sedimentation. In settling processes, particles are separated from a fluid by gravitational forces acting on the particles. The particles can be solid particles or liquid drops. The fluid can be a liquid or a gas. 

Isaac Newton modestly claimed to have stood on the shoulders of giants to explain how he was able to achieve his outstanding discoveries in the fields of gravitational attraction and planetary motion our Giants in the field of electromagnetic induction would probably have said the same. 

There are a number of relatively simple experiments with soap films that illustrate beautifully some of the implications of the Young-Laplace equation. Two of these have already been mentioned. Neglecting gravitational effects, a film stretched across a frame as in Fig. II-1 will be planar because the pressure is the same as both sides of the film. The experiment depicted in Fig. II-2 illustrates the relation between the pressure inside a spherical soap bubble and its radius of curvature by attaching a manometer, AP could be measured directly. 

Small drops or bubbles will tend to be spherical because surface forces depend on the area, which decreases as the square of the linear dimension, whereas distortions due to gravitational effects depend on the volume, which decreases as the cube of the linear dimension. Likewise, too, a drop of liquid in a second liquid of equal density will be spherical. However, when gravitational and surface tensional effects are comparable, then one can determine in principle the surface tension from measurements of the shape of the drop or bubble. The variations situations to which Eq. 11-16 applies are shown in Fig. 11-16. 

The final and less commonly dealt-with member of the family of electrokinetic phenomena is the sedimentation potential. If charged particles are caused to move relative to the medium as a result, say, of a gravitational or centrifugal field, there again will be an induced potential E. The formula relating to f and other parameters is [72, 77]... 

A thin film of hydrocarbon spread on a horizontal surface of quartz will experience a negative dispersion interaction. Treating these as 1 = quartz, 2 = n-decane, 3 = vacuum, determine the Hamaker constant A123 for the interaction. Balance the negative dispersion force (nonretarded) against the gravitational force to find the equilibrium film thickness. 

In the usual situation illustrated in Fig. XIII-6 the particle is supported at a liquid-air interface against gravitational attraction. As was seen, the restoring force... 

The miderstanding of the quantum mechanics of atoms was pioneered by Bohr, in his theory of the hydrogen atom. This combined the classical ideas on planetary motion—applicable to the atom because of the fomial similarity of tlie gravitational potential to tlie Coulomb potential between an electron and nucleus—with the quantum ideas that had recently been introduced by Planck and Einstein. This led eventually to the fomial theory of quaiitum mechanics, first discovered by Heisenberg, and most conveniently expressed by Schrodinger in the wave equation that bears his name. 

To define the thennodynamic state of a system one must specify fhe values of a minimum number of variables, enough to reproduce the system with all its macroscopic properties. If special forces (surface effecls, external fields—electric, magnetic, gravitational, etc) are absent, or if the bulk properties are insensitive to these forces, e.g. the weak terrestrial magnetic field, it ordinarily suffices—for a one-component system—to specify fliree variables, e.g. fhe femperature T, the pressure p and the number of moles n, or an equivalent set. For example, if the volume of a surface layer is negligible in comparison with the total volume, surface effects usually contribute negligibly to bulk thennodynamic properties. 

Wliat is probably the simplest fonn of work to understand occurs when a force is used to raise the system in a gravitational field ... 

Basic thermodynamics, statisticai thermodynamics, third-iaw entropies, phase transitions, mixtures and soiutions, eiectrochemicai systems, surfaces, gravitation, eiectrostatic and magnetic fieids. (in some ways the 3rd and 4th editions (1957 and 1960) are preferabie, being iess idiosyncratic.)... 

The fomiation of molecules was the first step toward local gravitational collapses which led to, among other things, the production of this encyclopedia. 

Many-body problems wnth RT potentials are notoriously difficult. It is well known that the Coulomb potential falls off so slowly with distance that mathematical difficulties can arise. The 4-k dependence of the integration volume element, combined with the RT dependence of the potential, produce ill-defined interaction integrals unless attractive and repulsive mteractions are properly combined. The classical or quantum treatment of ionic melts [17], many-body gravitational dynamics [18] and Madelung sums [19] for ionic crystals are all plagued by such difficulties. 

A. Ahmad and L. Cohen. A numerical integration scheme for the A -body gravitational problem. J. Comp. Phys., 12 389-402, 1973. 

When g = 1 the extensivity of the entropy can be used to derive the Boltzmann entropy equation 5 = fc In W in the microcanonical ensemble. When g 1, it is the odd property that the generalization of the entropy Sq is not extensive that leads to the peculiar form of the probability distribution. The non-extensivity of Sq has led to speculation that Tsallis statistics may be applicable to gravitational systems where interaction length scales comparable to the system size violate the assumptions underlying Gibbs-Boltzmann statistics. [4]... 

Several groups have previously reported parallel implementations of multipole based algorithms for evaluating the electrostatic n-body problem and the related gravitational n-body problem [1, 2]. These methods permit the evaluation of the mutual interaction between n particles in serial time proportional to n logn or even n under certain conditions, with further reductions in computation time from parallel processing. 

CE uses holonomic constraints. In a constrained system the coordinates of the particles 5t independent and the equations of motion in each of the coordinate directions are cted. A second difficulty is that the magnitude of the constraint forces is unknown, in the case of the box on the slope, the gravitational force acting on the box is in the ction whereas the motion is down the slope. The motion is thus not in the same direc-s the gravitational force. As such, the total force on the box can be considered to arise wo sources one due to gravity and the other a constraint force that is perpendicular to otion of the box (Figure 7.8). As there is no motion perpendicular to the surface of the the constraint force does no work. 

An interesting historical application of the Boltzmann equation involves examination of the number density of very small spherical globules of latex suspended in water. The particles are dishibuted in the potential gradient of the gravitational field. If an arbitrary point in the suspension is selected, the number of particles N at height h pm (1 pm= 10 m) above the reference point can be counted with a magnifying lens. In one series of measurements, the number of particles per unit volume of the suspension as a function of h was as shown in Table 3-3. 

Besides particles, the forces of nature play also a key role. In the past century four fundamental forces were recognized the gravitational, electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces. Of these the weak and strong forces are less familiar, because they are nuclear forces and their strength rapidly diminishes over all but subatomic scales. 

Fusion of a nucleus of with one of helium gives 0 Eventually the helium too becomes de pleted and gravitational attraction causes the core to contract and its temperature to increase to the point at which various fusion reactions give yet heav ler nuclei... 

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