| Fermat prime ... Ferreira, Manuel |
| | - Fermat prime
- prime number of the form 22n + 1, for some positive integer n. For example, 223 + 1 = 28 + 1 = 257 is a Fermat prime. On the basis of his knowledge that numbers of this form are prime for values of n from 1 through 4, the ...
- Fermat's last theorem
- the statement that there are no natural numbers (1, 2, 3, &elipsis;) x, y, and z such that xn + yn = zn, in which n is a natural number greater than 2. For example, if n = 3, Fermat's theorem states that no ...
- Fermat's principle
- in optics, statement that light traveling between two points seeks a path such that the number of waves (the optical length between the points) is equal, in the first approximation, to that in neighbouring paths. Another way of stating this ...
- Fermat, Pierre de
- French mathematician who is often called the founder of the modern theory of numbers. Together with Rene Descartes, Fermat was one of the two leading mathematicians of the first half of the 17th century. Independently of Descartes, Fermat discovered the ...
- fermentation
- originally, the foaming that occurs during the manufacture of wine and beer, a process at least 10,000 years old. That the frothing results from the evolution of carbon dioxide gas was not recognized until the 17th century. Louis Pasteur in ...
- Fermi level
- a measure of the energy of the least tightly held electrons within a solid, named for Enrico Fermi, the physicist who first proposed it. The value of the Fermi level at absolute zero (-273.15° C) is called the Fermi energy ...
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
- U.S. national particle-accelerator laboratory and centre for particle-physics research, located in Batavia, Illinois, about 43 km (27 miles) west of Chicago. The facility is operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Universities Research Association, a consortium of 85 ...
- Fermi surface
- in solid-state physics, abstract boundary or interface useful for characterizing and predicting the thermal, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties of metals, semimetals, and semiconductors. It is closely related to lattice periodicity, the underlying feature of all crystalline solids, and to ...
- Fermi, Enrico
- Italian-born American physicist who was one of the chief architects of the nuclear age. He developed the mathematical statistics required to clarify a large class of subatomic phenomena, discovered neutron-induced radioactivity, and directed the first controlled chain reaction involving nuclear ...
- Fermi-Dirac statistics
- in quantum mechanics, one of two possible ways in which a system of indistinguishable particles can be distributed among a set of energy states: each of the available discrete states can be occupied by only one particle. This exclusiveness accounts ...
- fermion
- any member of a group of subatomic particles having odd half-integral angular momentum (spin 12, 32), named for the Fermi-Dirac statistics that describe its behaviour. Fermions include particles in the class of leptons (e.g., electrons, muons), baryons (e.g., neutrons, protons, ...
- fermium
- (Fm), synthetic chemical element of the actinide series in Group IIIb of the periodic table, atomic number 100. Fermium (as the isotope fermium-255) is produced by the intense neutron irradiation of uranium-238 and was first positively identified by Albert Ghiorso ...
- Fermo
- town and archiepiscopal see, Ascoli Piceno provincia, Marche regione, Italy. It is situated on a hill overlooking the Tenna River, near the Adriatic Sea. An ancient stronghold (Firmum Picenum) of the Picenes (early inhabitants of the coast), it was taken ...
- fern
- any of several nonflowering vascular plants that possess true roots, stems, and complex leaves and that reproduce by spores. They belong to the vascular plant division Filicophyta, having leaves with branching vein systems and the young leaves usually unrolling from ...
- fern moss
- (genus Thuidium), any of several species of plants (order Bryales) that form mats in grassy areas and on soil, rocks, logs, and tree bases throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Fewer than 10 species are native to North America. A fern moss ...
- Fernald, Merritt Lyndon
- American botanist noted for his comprehensive study of the flora of the northeastern United States.
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