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This is a list of well-known dimensionless quantities illustrating their variety of forms and applications. The tables also include pure numbers, dimensionless ratios, or dimensionless physical constants; these topics are discussed in the article.
Physics relies on dimensionless numbers like the Reynolds number in fluid dynamics, [6] the fine-structure constant in quantum mechanics, [7] and the Lorentz factor in relativity. [8] In chemistry , state properties and ratios such as mole fractions concentration ratios are dimensionless.
For example, if x is a quantity, then x c is the characteristic unit used to scale it. As an illustrative example, consider a first order differential equation with constant coefficients: + = (). In this equation the independent variable here is t, and the dependent variable is x.
Although named for Edgar Buckingham, the π theorem was first proved by the French mathematician Joseph Bertrand in 1878. [1] Bertrand considered only special cases of problems from electrodynamics and heat conduction, but his article contains, in distinct terms, all the basic ideas of the modern proof of the theorem and clearly indicates the theorem's utility for modelling physical phenomena.
Dimensionless numbers (or characteristic numbers) have an important role in analyzing the behavior of fluids and their flow as well as in other transport phenomena. [1] They include the Reynolds and the Mach numbers, which describe as ratios the relative magnitude of fluid and physical system characteristics, such as density, viscosity, speed of sound, and flow speed.
In physics, a characteristic length is an important dimension that defines the scale of a physical system. Often, such a length is used as an input to a formula in order to predict some characteristics of the system, and it is usually required by the construction of a dimensionless quantity, in the general framework of dimensional analysis and in particular applications such as fluid mechanics.
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Since the resulting equations need to be dimensionless, a suitable combination of parameters and constants of the equations and flow (domain) characteristics have to be found. As a result of this combination, the number of parameters to be analyzed is reduced and the results may be obtained in terms of the scaled variables.