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Abbreviation of "Vergeltungwaffe 2" (vengeance weapon 2), a 12-ton German rocket carrying a 1-ton explosive charge, used in World War II, starting in 1944. The V2 had a range of around 200 miles, used a liquid-fuel rocket and was the first large military rocket.
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A machine for creating voltages up to several million volts. Electric charge is sprayed onto a rubber band, which carries it into the inside of a metal sphere, insulated from the ground, where it is picked up and added to the charge already on the sphere. The energy invested by the band, overcoming the electrical repulsion of charges already on the sphere provides the energy for creating the high voltage.
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A quantity having both magnitude and direction, e.g. displacement, velocity, acceleration and force. Vectors are added when, for instance, one moves in a frame that itself is moving too (e.g. swims across a flowing river). Vectors are added like arrows, end to end, and the sum (for two) is the vector from the tail of the first vector to the tip of the second.
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The representation of a given vector as the sum of vectors in given directions. See component.
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Rate of position change, a vector quantity.
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The velocity needed to escape the gravity of a planet or other celestial body. The escape velocity from Earth is 11.3 km/sec.
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The spring equinox. The term is also used for the point occupied by the Sun at that time, one of the two intersections on the celestial spher, between the ecliptic and the celestial equator. Also known as first point in Aries.
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