News tagged with surface area

How dogs can walk on ice without freezing their paws

Scientists in Japan have solved a long-standing veterinary mystery: how dogs can stand and walk for so long on snow and ice without apparent discomfort, and without freezing their paws.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 13, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (34) | comments 39 | with audio podcast report

Success in synthesis of new high performance functional material mesoporous prussian blue

The National Institute for Materials Science in Japan succeeded in fabricating mesoporous Prussian blue, in which an extremely large number of nanosized pores (mesoporous) are formed in the crystal structure of the material.

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Jan 05, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Zeolite synthesis made easy

Zeolites are porous materials with perfectly regular pores and high surface area that can act as molecular sieves. This property has led to important applications including the purification of air or water such as the contaminated ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Dec 12, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Insecticides an increasing problem in future for streams in Europe

Europe's streams will in future be more heavily polluted with insecticides than before. This is the conclusion of a study by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) for which scientists compared ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 06, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

NASA's Nanosail-D 'sails' home -- mission complete

After spending more than 240 days "sailing" around the Earth, NASA's NanoSail-D -- a nanosatellite that deployed NASA's first-ever solar sail in low-Earth orbit -- has successfully completed its Earth orbiting ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 30, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Earthquakes generate big heat in super-small areas: study

Most earthquakes that are seen, heard, and felt around the world are caused by fast slip on faults. While the earthquake rupture itself can travel on a fault as fast as the speed of sound or better, the fault ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (4) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

France launches vast solar panel array

France on Thursday launched its largest-ever solar energy farm, with an array of panels spread over about 200 hectares (500 acres) in the mountainous southern Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region.

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (9) | comments 11

How to count nanoparticles

Nanoparticles of a substance can be counted and the size distribution can be determined by dispersing the nanoparticles into a gas. But some nanoparticles tend to aggregate when the surrounding conditions change. Scientists ...

Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine

created Oct 11, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Solar rays could replace petroleum fuels, research shows

(PhysOrg.com) -- Alternative fuel sources for cars may have a glowing future as a Kansas State University graduate student is working to replace petroleum fuels with ones made from sunlight.

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Sep 13, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

New material possible boon for lithium ion batteries

Batteries could get a boost from an Oak Ridge National Laboratory discovery that increases power, energy density and safety while dramatically reducing charge time.

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Sep 08, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Earth from space: Irene's eye

This week we look at two images taken simultaneously with different Envisat sensors of Hurricane Irene, which struck the US east coast last week.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Sep 02, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Pretreatment, proper harvest time boost ethanol from switchgrass

Adding a pretreatment step would allow producers to get more ethanol from switchgrass harvested in the fall, according to a Purdue University study.

Biology / Biotechnology

created Aug 31, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Schoolchildren can also learn complex subject matters on their own

Self-directed learning has long been heralded as the key to successful education. Yet until now, there has been little research into this theory. Educational researchers at the Technical University of Munich have now shown ...

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Aug 08, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Efficacy of cool roofs varies from city to city

(PhysOrg.com) -- While cool roofs and pavements have been found to cool the planet by preventing energy from being radiated back into the atmosphere, previous studies have not accounted for atmospheric feedbacks ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jul 27, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Deepwater Horizon crude less toxic to bird eggs after weathering at sea

After collecting weathered crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, researchers at The Institute of Environmental and Human Health (TIEHH) at Texas Tech University have reported that only ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jul 22, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Surface area

Surface area is the measure of how much exposed area a solid object has, expressed in square units. Mathematical description of the surface area is considerably more involved then the definition of arc length of a curve. For polyhedra (objects with flat polygonal faces) the surface area is the sum of the areas of its faces. Smooth surfaces, such as a sphere, are assigned surface area using their representation as parametric surfaces. This definition of the surface area is based on methods of infinitesimal calculus and involves partial derivatives and double integration.

General definition of surface area was sought by Henri Lebesgue and Hermann Minkowski at the turn of the twentieth century. Their work led to the development of geometric measure theory which studies various notions of surface area for irregular objects of any dimension. An important example is the Minkowski content of a surface.

For more information about Surface area, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.