Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Exponential decay. A quantity undergoing exponential decay. Larger decay constants make the quantity vanish much more rapidly. This plot shows decay for decay constant ( λ) of 25, 5, 1, 1/5, and 1/25 for x from 0 to 5. A quantity is subject to exponential decay if it decreases at a rate proportional to its current value.
Half-life (symbol t½) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable atoms survive. The term is also used more generally to characterize any type of exponential (or, rarely ...
Exponential growth. Exponential growth is a process that increases quantity over time at an ever-increasing rate. It occurs when the instantaneous rate of change (that is, the derivative) of a quantity with respect to time is proportional to the quantity itself. Described as a function, a quantity undergoing exponential growth is an exponential ...
The constant decay rate of the golden rule follows. As a constant, it underlies the exponential particle decay laws of radioactivity. (For excessively long times, however, the secular growth of the a k ( t ) terms invalidates lowest-order perturbation theory, which requires a k ≪ a i .)
In physics and engineering, the time constant, usually denoted by the Greek letter τ (tau), is the parameter characterizing the response to a step input of a first-order, linear time-invariant (LTI) system. [1] [note 1] The time constant is the main characteristic unit of a first-order LTI system. In the time domain, the usual choice to ...
To the right is the long tail, and to the left are the few that dominate (also known as the 80–20 rule ). In statistics, a power law is a functional relationship between two quantities, where a relative change in one quantity results in a relative change in the other quantity proportional to a power of the change, independent of the initial ...
Newton's law of cooling. In the study of heat transfer, Newton's law of cooling is a physical law which states that the rate of heat loss of a body is directly proportional to the difference in the temperatures between the body and its environment. The law is frequently qualified to include the condition that the temperature difference is small ...
The equivalent concept to doubling time for a material undergoing a constant negative relative growth rate or exponential decay is the half-life. The equivalent concept in base- e is e -folding . Graphs comparing doubling times and half lives of exponential growths (bold lines) and decay (faint lines), and their 70/ t and 72/ t approximations.