Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Resembling a
point - adjective physics Having
dimensions too small to be measured, or so small that it may be regarded as a point
Etymologies
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Examples
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Instead of being “pointlike,” they are modeled by filaments of energy so tiny that there is no known way to observe them or even to prove they are real.
Attached to Strings 2009
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Instead of being “pointlike,” they are modeled by filaments of energy so tiny that there is no known way to observe them or even to prove they are real.
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Next, identify pairs of canonical conjugate variables, such as coordinates and momenta for pointlike particles (Ch. 21.2), the angular variables φ and cosθ for spins, or whatever.
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See p. 496, where this procedure is implemented for the case of a nonrelativistic pointlike particle.
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We pretend that masses and electric charges are pointlike, which simplifies the calculation — we can specify the location of the object by saying it lies at point X.
Optics basics: What is a wave? Part I (updated) « Skulls in the Stars 2007
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(Section 13), all fundamental particles can be considered to be excitations of underlying non-pointlike entities in a multi-dimensional space.
Holism and Nonseparability in Physics Healey, Richard 2008
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Moreover, if our lens is not a massless pointlike event, it will also have its own differences in accelerations at the surface that will influence its interactions with infalling particles from the direction of Hyperion.
Quantum Hyperion Sean 2008
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We would see quite a few pointlike and smearlike objects which would
The Arrow of Time in Scientific American Sean 2008
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Apparently the person on the street is sufficiently caught up with current thinking in high-energy physics to know that string theory — the idea that the ultimate building blocks of nature are quantized loops of string, not pointlike elementary particles — is our leading candidate for a theory that would, indeed, “explain everything.”
String Theory: Not Dead Yet Sean 2007
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To be clear when I say not pointlike, I mean at least 1 dimensional or greater.
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