noise, in acoustics, any undesired sound, either one that is intrinsically objectionable or one that interferes with other sounds that are being listened to. In electronics and information theory, noise refers to those random, unpredictable, and undesirable signals, or changes in signals, that mask

materials testing: Static tension and compression tests: Static compression tests determine a material’s response to crushing, or support-type loading (such as in the beams of a house). Testing machines and extensometers for compression tests resemble those used for tension tests. Specimens are generally simpler, however, because gripping is not usually a problem.…

static electricity, form of electricity resulting from the imbalance between positive and negative charges within a material that occurs when electrons (the negatively charged particles in an atom) move from one material to another. If the electron-receiving material is either isolated or not an

equilibrium, in physics, the condition of a system when neither its state of motion nor its internal energy state tends to change with time. A simple mechanical body is said to be in equilibrium if it experiences neither linear acceleration nor angular acceleration; unless it is disturbed by an

coefficient of friction: In static friction, the frictional force resists force that is applied to an object, and the object remains at rest until the force of static friction is overcome. In kinetic friction, the frictional force resists the motion of an object. For the case of a brick…

human nervous system: Muscle spindles: …movement; the other type, the static fusimotor axon, decreases its sensitivity, causing it to behave much more like a secondary ending. Thus, the two types of efferent fiber provide a means whereby the sensitivity of the muscle spindle to external stimuli may be regulated over a very wide range. Stimulation…

Deepwater Horizon oil spill: Leaking oil: …3 BP conducted a “static kill,” a procedure in which drilling mud was pumped into the well through the BOP. Though similar to the failed top kill, mud could be injected at much lower pressures during the static kill because of the stabilizing influence of the capping stack. The…

airspeed indicator: …pressure of still air (static pressure) and that of moving air compressed by the craft’s forward motion (ram pressure); as speed increases, the difference between these pressures increases as well.

static random access memory (SRAM), type of random access memory that gives fast access to data but is physically relatively large. Random access memory (RAM) is computer main memory in which specific contents can be accessed (read or written) directly by the central processing unit (CPU) in a very

static random access memory (SRAM), type of random access memory that gives fast access to data but is physically relatively large. Random access memory (RAM) is computer main memory in which specific contents can be accessed (read or written) directly by the central processing unit (CPU) in a very

materials testing: Static shear and bending tests: Inplane shear tests indicate the deformation response of a material to forces applied tangentially. These tests are applied primarily to thin sheet materials, either metals or composites, such as fibreglass reinforced plastic.

ship: Static stability: Accurately predicting a ship’s draft is a necessary result of correctly applied hydrostatic principles but is far from sufficient. If the many items of weight on a ship are not distributed with considerable precision, the ship will float at unwanted angles of heel…

materials testing: Static tension and compression tests: When subjected to tension (pulling apart), a material elongates and eventually breaks. A simple static tension test determines the breaking point of the material and its elongation, designated as strain (change in length per unit length). If a 100-millimetre steel…

gas: Kinetic-molecular picture: …and for many years a static picture of gases was instead espoused, in which the pressure, for instance, was attributed to repulsive forces between essentially stationary particles pushing on the container walls. How the kinetic-molecular picture finally came to be universally accepted is a fascinating piece of scientific history and…

bridge: Forces of nature: Static wind load is the horizontal pressure that tries to push a bridge sideways. Dynamic wind load gives rise to vertical motion, creating oscillations in any direction. Like the breaking of an overused violin string, oscillations are vibrations that can cause a bridge to fail.…

compressor: Positive displacement compressors are usually of the reciprocating piston type, in which the gas is drawn in during the suction stroke of the piston, compressed by decreasing the volume of the gas by moving the piston in the opposite direction, and, lastly, discharged when the…

sea lavender, (genus Limonium), genus of about 300 species of chiefly perennial herbaceous plants of the family Plumbaginaceae. The plants are found in North America, Eurasia, Africa, and Australia, most members being found around the Mediterranean region. Sea lavenders tolerate saline soils and

statics, in physics, the subdivision of mechanics that is concerned with the forces that act on bodies at rest under equilibrium conditions. Its foundations were laid more than 2,200 years ago by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and others while studying the force-amplifying properties of

statin, drug that acts to lower cholesterol levels by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA (5-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A) reductase, which is required for cholesterol synthesis. Examples of statins include simvastatin, pravastatin, and lovastatin. Statins are generally quite safe, but side

reservation, tract of land set aside by a government for the use of one or more aboriginal peoples. In the early 21st century, reservations existed on every continent except Antarctica but were most numerous in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Most of the reservations in these countries,

Grey’s Anatomy: …spin-offs Private Practice (2007–13) and Station 19 (2018– ).

Peter Dinklage: …in 2003 with the movie The Station Agent. The role of Finbar McBride, an introverted man who inherits an abandoned train station in Newfoundland, New Jersey, was created by writer and director Tom McCarthy specifically for Dinklage, and the film was the toast of the festival circuit. Dinklage was nominated…

nuclear reactor: Systems and structures: In station blackout, a failure in the power line to which the station is connected is postulated. The proposed emergency defense is a secondary electrical system, typically a combination of diesel generators big enough to drive the pumps and a battery supply sufficient to run the…

theatre: Production aspects of Expressionist theatre: …style of theatre was called Stationendrama (“station drama”) and was clearly derived from the principles of the medieval mystery plays. This led to a consideration of the scene in the theatre as being self-contained. Significance and meaning derived from the juxtaposition or accumulation of scenes rather than from a continuous…

David Cross: Arrested Development and later acting credits: …cast in the dystopian miniseries Station Eleven (2021–22). In 2023 Cross portrayed a crooked businessman in the miniseries Justified: City Primeval. During this time Cross also created and starred in the TV show The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (2009–16), which centers on an American who is hired to…

Seamus Heaney: …style are Field Work (1979), Station Island (1984), The Haw Lantern (1987), and Seeing Things (1991). The Spirit Level (1996) concerns the notion of centredness and balance in both the natural and the spiritual senses. His Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966–1996 was published in 1998. In Electric Light (2001) and…

protractor: This instrument, called a three-arm protractor, or station pointer, is composed of a circular scale connected to three arms. The centre arm is fixed, while the outer two are rotatable, capable of being set at any angle relative to the centre one.

Stonehenge: Second stage: 2640–2480 bce: Four upright stones, called the Station Stones, were erected near the Aubrey Hole ring, probably also during the second stage of Stonehenge, if not during the period between the monument’s first and second stages. Only two of the stones—both of sarsen—have survived. The four Station Stones were placed in a…

automobile: From station wagons to vans and sport utility vehicles: Until 1948 the station wagon had been a utility vehicle, with a wooden body and little in the way of creature comforts. In 1949 Chrysler introduced an all-steel wagon in its entry-level Plymouth line. Within three years all manufacturers were offering them, and a genre of utilitarian yet…

railroad: Buildings: …and surroundings of new passenger stations are laid out to provide adequate and convenient areas for connecting bus or trolley-car services, for private automobile parking, or for so-called “kiss-and-ride”—automobiles that are discharging or picking up rail passengers. Many existing stations have had their surroundings reorganized to provide these facilities.

The Station nightclub fire: …of retro rock music at The Station, fans turned out in force. The warm-up acts went down well, and, by the time Great White took the stage, shortly after 23.00, the crowd’s spirits were high. The band started with their traditional opening song “Desert Moon,” accompanied by a pyrotechnic display…

battery: Lead-acid batteries: Stationary batteries are now much more common than was once the case. These batteries have heavier grid structures and other features to give them long shelf life. They are used to power emergency lights, in uninterruptible power systems for hospitals, factories, and telephone exchanges, and…

saw: The table saw (or stationary circular saw) consists of a circular saw that can be raised and tilted, protruding through a slot in a horizontal metal table on which the work can be laid and pushed into contact with the saw. This saw is one of…

probability theory: Markovian processes: …to a distribution, called the stationary distribution, that does not depend on the starting value X(0) = x. Moreover, with probability 1, the proportion of time the process spends in any subset of its state space converges to the stationary probability of that set; and, if X(0) is given the…

bicycle: Basic types: …front rider steering; and stationary exercise bicycles.

atmosphere: Polar fronts and the jet stream: …polar front is called a stationary front. In the occluded stage of the life cycle of an extratropical cyclone, when cold air west of the surface low-pressure centre advances more rapidly toward the east than cold air ahead of the warm front, warmer, less-dense air is forced aloft. This frontal…

bacteria: Growth of bacterial populations: …growth is followed by the stationary phase, in which the size of a population of bacteria remains constant, even though some cells continue to divide and others begin to die. The stationary phase is followed by the death phase, in which the death of cells in the population exceeds the…

stationary phase, in analytical chemistry, the phase over which the mobile phase passes in the technique of chromatography. Chromatography is a separation process involving two phases, one stationary and the other mobile. Typically, the stationary phase is a porous solid (e.g., glass, silica, or

probability theory: Stationary processes: ” The mathematical theory of stochastic processes attempts to define classes of processes for which a unified theory can be developed. The most important classes are stationary processes and Markov processes. A stochastic process is called stationary if, for all n, t1 < t2…

rings, gymnastics apparatus consisting of two small circles that are suspended by straps from an overhead support and grasped by the gymnast while performing various exercises. They were invented in the early 19th century by the German Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, known as the “father of gymnastics.”

theatre: Staging conventions: …of staging was the so-called stationary setting, found outside of England, which involved placing the mansions in a wider range of locales. Here the audience accepted three conventions. One was the symbolic representation of localities by the mansions; the second was the placing of the mansions near each other; and…

energy level, in physics, any discrete value from a set of values of total energy for a subatomic particle confined by a force to a limited space or for a system of such particles, such as an atom or a nucleus. A particular hydrogen atom, for example, may exist in any of several configurations,

probability theory: Markovian processes: A Markov process with stationary transition probabilities may or may not be a stationary process in the sense of the preceding paragraph. If Y1, Y2,… are independent random variables and X(t) = Y1 +⋯+ Yt, the stochastic process X(t) is a Markov process. Given X(t) = x, the

standing wave, combination of two waves moving in opposite directions, each having the same amplitude and frequency. The phenomenon is the result of interference; that is, when waves are superimposed, their energies are either added together or canceled out. In the case of waves moving in the same

theatre: Production aspects of Expressionist theatre: …style of theatre was called Stationendrama (“station drama”) and was clearly derived from the principles of the medieval mystery plays. This led to a consideration of the scene in the theatre as being self-contained. Significance and meaning derived from the juxtaposition or accumulation of scenes rather than from a continuous…

theatre: Production aspects of Expressionist theatre: …style of theatre was called Stationendrama (“station drama”) and was clearly derived from the principles of the medieval mystery plays. This led to a consideration of the scene in the theatre as being self-contained. Significance and meaning derived from the juxtaposition or accumulation of scenes rather than from a continuous…

history of publishing: The revival of the secular book trade: University stationers were established to supply the demand; these were controlled by the universities, which framed regulations about the content and size of books and set prices for sale and for rental. The University of Vercelli in Piedmont, Italy, framed such a regulation in 1228, and…

almanac: …England were published by the Stationer’s Company; the most famous of them is the Vox Stellarum of Francis Moore, which was first published in 1700. These early printed almanacs devoted as much space to astrology and prophecies and predictions of the future as they did to basic calendrical and astronomical…

Barnett Newman: …series of 14 paintings called Stations of the Cross, exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, in 1966, fully established his reputation.

Turkey: Kemalist policies: Statism was the movement toward state-controlled economic development; the shortage of skilled labour and entrepreneurs (caused largely by the reduction of the Greek and Armenian communities, which in 1914 had controlled four-fifths of Ottoman finance, industry, and commerce), the lack of capital, and the intense…

communism: Non-Marxian communism: In Statism and Anarchy (1874), for example, Bakunin attacked Marx’s view that the transitional state—the dictatorship of the proletariat—would simply wither away after it had served its purpose of preventing a bourgeois counterrevolution. No state, said Bakunin, has ever withered away, and no state ever will.…

decision theory, in statistics, a set of quantitative methods for reaching optimal decisions. A solvable decision problem must be capable of being tightly formulated in terms of initial conditions and choices or courses of action, with their consequences. In general, such consequences are not known

probability and statistics: A new kind of regularity: The statistical determinism inaugurated by Quetelet had a quite different character. Now it was not necessary to know things in infinite detail. At the microlevel, indeed, knowledge often fails, for who can penetrate the human soul so fully as to comprehend why a troubled individual has…

probability theory: Independence: One of the most important concepts in probability theory is that of “independence.” The events A and B are said to be (stochastically) independent if P(B|A) = P(B), or equivalently if

inference, in statistics, the process of drawing conclusions about a parameter one is seeking to measure or estimate. Often scientists have many measurements of an object—say, the mass of an electron—and wish to choose the best measure. One principal approach of statistical inference is Bayesian

statistical mechanics, branch of physics that combines the principles and procedures of statistics with the laws of both classical and quantum mechanics, particularly with respect to the field of thermodynamics. It aims to predict and explain the measurable properties of macroscopic systems on the

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher: His Statistical Methods for Research Workers (1925) remained in print for more than 50 years. His breeding experiments led to theories about gene dominance and fitness, published in The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930). In 1933 Fisher became Galton Professor of Eugenics at University College,…

nuclear model: …second group, called strong-interaction, or statistical models, the main assumption is that the protons and neutrons are mutually coupled to each other and behave cooperatively in a way that reflects the short-ranged strong nuclear force between them. The liquid-drop model and compound-nucleus model (qq.v.) are examples of this group.

probability and statistics: Statistical physics: The same issues were discussed also in physics. Statistical understandings first gained an influential role in physics at just this time, in consequence of papers by the German mathematical physicist Rudolf Clausius from the late 1850s and, especially, of one by the Scottish…

statistical quality control: Statistical process control: Statistical process control uses sampling and statistical methods to monitor the quality of an ongoing process such as a production operation. A graphical display referred to as a control chart provides a basis for deciding whether the variation in the output of…

statistical quality control, the use of statistical methods in the monitoring and maintaining of the quality of products and services. One method, referred to as acceptance sampling, can be used when a decision must be made to accept or reject a group of parts or items based on the quality found in

statistical significance, in statistics, the determination that a result or an observation from a set of data is due to intrinsic qualities and not random variance of a sample. An observation is statistically significant if its probability of occurring is extremely small given the truth of a null

psychological testing: Primary characteristics of methods or instruments: Empirical validity (also called statistical or predictive validity) describes how closely scores on a test correspond (correlate) with behaviour as measured in other contexts. Students’ scores on a test of academic aptitude, for example, may be compared with their school grades (a commonly used criterion).…

tropical cyclone: Landfall forecasts: …type of model, called a statistical-dynamical model, forecasts the large-scale circulation by solving equations that describe changes in atmospheric pressure, wind, and moisture. Statistical relations that predict the track of the storm based on the large-scale conditions are then used to forecast the storm’s future position. A third type of…

statistics, the science of collecting, analyzing, presenting, and interpreting data. Governmental needs for census data as well as information about a variety of economic activities provided much of the early impetus for the field of statistics. Currently the need to turn the large amounts of data

Asa Gray: …paper on plant distribution, “Statistics of the Flora of the Northern United States,” was written partly in response to a request by Charles Darwin for a list of American alpine plants. Gray was one of the few persons whom Darwin kept fully informed concerning the publication of his Origin…

Jean-François Vonck: …of the southern Netherlands, the Statists, led by Henri van der Noot, sought a return to rule by the nobility and clergy. Vonck formed a secret society, Pro Aris et Focis (For Altar and Hearth), which gained widespread support, and then organized a volunteer army based at Liège and commanded…

Statius was one of the principal Roman epic and lyric poets of the Silver Age of Latin literature (ad 18–133). His occasional poems, collected under the title Silvae (“Forests”), apart from their literary merit, are valuable for their description of the life style of a wealthy and fashionable

Indo-European languages: Verbal inflection: ’ The stative aspect, traditionally called “perfect,” described states of the subject—e.g., *ste-stóH2- ‘be in a standing position,’ *me-món- ‘have in mind.’

hotel: …York, in 1908 of the Statler Hotel, whose owner, Ellsworth Milton Statler, introduced many innovations in service and conveniences for the benefit of the large and growing class of business travelers. From the Buffalo Statler grew the Statler Company, the first great chain operation in hotelkeeping.

Ellsworth Milton Statler was a U.S. hotel owner and the founder of the Statler chain. Statler grew up in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and in Bridgeport, Ohio. Through most of his childhood he had to work because of his family’s poverty, and at 13 he got a job as a bellboy in a hotel in Wheeling,

Vatican City, landlocked ecclesiastical state, seat of the Roman Catholic Church, and an enclave in Rome, situated on the west bank of the Tiber River. Vatican City is the world’s smallest fully independent nation-state. Its medieval and Renaissance walls form its boundaries except on the southeast

dormancy: Invertebrates: …bryozoans develop disklike buds, or statoblasts, that are surrounded by a hard, chitinous (horny) shell. These statoblasts are the dormant structures that survive when the bryozoan dies in the fall or during a drought; they form a new bryozoan colony when favourable environmental conditions again prevail.

inner ear: Equilibrium: …particles of calcium carbonate, called otoliths. Motions of the head cause the otoliths to pull on the hair cells, stimulating another auditory nerve branch, the vestibular nerve, which signals the position of the head with respect to the rest of the body.

bivalve: The nervous system and organs of sensation: …ganglia are a pair of statocysts, which comprise a capsule of ciliated sense cells. In the lumen is either a single statolith or numerous crystalline statoconia. Their points of contact with the surrounding cilia yield information about the animal’s orientation. Additionally, most bivalves with or without eyes have light-sensitive cells…

crustacean: The nervous system: …or more small granules, called statoliths, that rest on numerous small setae. Any change in orientation causes the statoliths to impinge on the setae at a different angle, and this information is relayed to the brain so that corrective action can be taken. Finally, other setae are chemosensory; they detect…

human ear: Vestibule: …a delicate acellular structure, the otolithic, or statolithic, membrane. This membrane is sometimes described as gelatinous, although it has a fibrillar pattern. The surface of the membrane is covered by a blanket of rhombohedral crystals, referred to as otoconia or statoconia, which consist of calcium carbonate in the form of…

automobile: Transmission: …oil then passes into the stator vanes, which redirect it to the pump. The stator serves as a reaction member providing more torque to turn the turbine than was originally applied to the pump impeller by the engine. Thus, it acts to multiply engine torque by a factor of up…

electric generator: Stator: …voltage is induced in the stator coil. At any instant, the magnitude of the voltage is proportional to the rate at which the magnetic field encircled by the coil is changing with time—i.e.,the rate at which the magnetic field is passing the two sides of the coil. The voltage will…

electric generator: Stator windings: The maximum value of flux density in the air gap is limited by magnetic saturation in the stator and rotor iron, and is typically about one tesla (weber per square metre). The effective, or root-mean-square (rms), voltage induced in one turn of a…

golden algae: …known as a statocyst or statospore, the ornamentation of which can serve to distinguish between species. Sexual reproduction is rare. Asexual reproduction is by the formation of motile and nonmotile spores and by cell division.

bronze: Statuary bronze, with a tin content of less than 10 percent and an admixture of zinc and lead, is technically a brass (a copper-zinc alloy). Bronze is improved in hardness and strength by the addition of a small amount of phosphorus; phosphor bronze may contain…

Statuary Hall, the main exhibition space of the National Statuary Hall collection in the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. The collection comprises statues of outstanding U.S. citizens chosen by each state. The hall was originally constructed for the House of Representatives, which began using it as a

Western sculpture: …there developed two general types: statuary, in which figures are shown in the round, and relief, in which figures project from a ground.

Statue of Liberty, colossal statue on Liberty Island in the Upper New York Bay, U.S., commemorating the friendship of the peoples of the United States and France. Standing 305 feet (93 metres) high including its pedestal, it represents a woman holding a torch in her raised right hand and a tablet

Alain Resnais: Les Statues meurent aussi (1953; Statues Also Die), his study of African art, was banned for 12 years for references to colonialism that he refused to alter. Some critics condemned Hiroshima mon amour for its sympathetic treatment of the heroine, once a wartime collaborationist and…

Alain Resnais: Les Statues meurent aussi (1953; Statues Also Die), his study of African art, was banned for 12 years for references to colonialism that he refused to alter. Some critics condemned Hiroshima mon amour for its sympathetic treatment of the heroine, once a wartime collaborationist and…

Anatolian religion: Prehistoric periods: …come a series of remarkable statuettes. The majority of these are abstract, disk-shaped idols without limbs; many of them have two, three, or even four heads, and others bear on their chests small male figures in relief, in one case accompanied by a lion. There can be little doubt that…

road: The Roman roads: …courses were constructed: (1) the statumen layer 10 to 24 inches (250 to 600 mm) thick, composed of stones at least 2 inches in size, (2) the rudus, a 9-inch-thick layer of concrete made from stones under 2 inches in size, (3) the nucleus layer, about 12 inches thick, using…

Ant-Man and the Wasp: …Pym particles, adopts the name Stature to fight crime as a member of the Young Avengers.

asthma: Treatment and management of asthma: …respond to medication is called status asthmaticus; a person with this condition must be hospitalized to receive oxygen and other treatment.

South Africa: The intensification of apartheid in the 1930s: …that decision by enacting the Status of the Union Act, which declared the country to be “a sovereign independent state.”

As recently as the 19th century tropical forests covered approximately 20 percent of the dry land area on Earth. By the end of the 20th century this figure had dropped to less than 7 percent. The factors contributing to deforestation are numerous, complex, and often international in scope.

social status, the relative rank that an individual holds, with attendant rights, duties, and lifestyle, in a social hierarchy based upon honour or prestige. Status may be ascribed—that is, assigned to individuals at birth without reference to any innate abilities—or achieved, requiring special

Canada: Indigenous peoples: …as Indians are known as status Indians. First Nations people who have chosen to give up their status rights or who have lost them through intermarriage with people of European ancestry are called nonstatus Indians. (Beginning in 1985, Canadian law has allowed those who lost their status through intermarriage to…

criminal law: Legality: …of criminal law is a statute (nullum crimen sine lege, “no crime without a law”).

statute labour, unpaid work on public projects that is required by law. Under the Roman Empire, certain classes of the population owed personal services to the state or to private proprietors—for example, labour in lieu of taxes for the upkeep of roads, bridges, and dikes; unpaid labour by coloni

common law: Early statute law: Edward I (reigned 1272–1307) has been called the English Justinian because his enactments had such an important influence on the law of the Middle Ages. Edward’s civil legislation, which amended the unwritten common law, remained for centuries as the basic statute law. It…

Emancipation Manifesto: (The acts were collectively called Statutes Concerning Peasants Leaving Serf Dependence, or Polozheniya o Krestyanakh Vykhodyashchikh iz Krepostnoy Zavisimosty.)

Statuto Albertino, (March 4, 1848), constitution granted to his subjects by King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia; when Italy was unified under Piedmontese leadership (1861), it became the constitution of the Kingdom of Italy. Originally it was a rather conservative document that set up a strong