All articles starting with S

Superpermutation

A superpermutation is a string over n symbols that contains every one of the n! permutations as a contiguous substring; the minimum length remains open for n at least 6.

Superphénix

Superphénix was a 1,200 MWe sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor at Creys-Malville, France, the world's first commercial-scale fast breeder, which operated from 1985 until its shutdown in 1998.

Superphosphate

Superphosphate is a phosphate fertilizer made by treating phosphate rock or bone with sulfuric acid, first patented by John Bennet Lawes in 1842, which launched the modern fertilizer industry.

Superplasticity is the ability of a fine-grained material to stretch uniformly in tension to elongations of several hundred percent or more without localized necking, exploited in superplastic forming.

Superplasticizer

A superplasticizer, also called a high-range water reducer (HRWR), is a chemical admixture that disperses cement particles, cutting a concrete mix's water demand by 12 to more than 30 percent.

Superpoint

SuperPoint is a self-supervised, fully-convolutional neural network that detects interest points and computes descriptors in a single forward pass, introduced by Magic Leap in 2018 for SLAM and camera calibration.

Superposition (interpretability)

Superposition is the hypothesis, central to mechanistic interpretability, that a neural network encodes more features than it has dimensions by storing them in nearly-orthogonal directions.

Superposition hypothesis (machine learning)

The superposition hypothesis is the mechanistic interpretability proposal that networks encode more features than neurons in nearly orthogonal directions, explaining polysemanticity and motivating sparse autoencoders.

Superposition principle

The superposition principle, also called the principle of superposition, states that overlapping waves add their displacements, governing wave interference for sound, water, string, and electromagnetic waves.

Superpotential

A superpotential is a function W(x) in supersymmetric quantum mechanics from which partner potentials V±(x) = W²(x) ± W′(x) are built; shape-invariant cases yield exact algebraic spectra, as for the harmonic oscillator.

Superpower

A superpower is a state able to influence events and project power worldwide, a rank above great power; the United States and the Soviet Union held it.

Superpower (ability)

Superpower (ability): the popular-culture term for a superhuman ability in fiction, the defining trait of superheroes and supervillains; common examples are superhuman strength, flight, and telekinesis, usually paired with limitations.

Superprod Group

Superprod Group is an independent European production and distribution company founded in Paris in 2010 by Clément Calvet and Jérémie Fajner, producing animated and live-action films and series.

Superradiance

Superradiance is the amplification of waves scattered off a rotating body; around spinning black holes, boson fields grow into clouds that drain the hole's rotational energy and slow its spin.

Superradiant and subradiant modes

Superradiant and subradiant modes are collective states of coupled quantum emitters that radiate together faster or slower than a single isolated emitter, with dipoles adding or interfering destructively.

Superradiant laser

A superradiant laser is a laser that stores its frequency information in atoms rather than in the light between its mirrors, making it highly immune to vibration.

Superreal number

A superreal number is an element of an ordered field that properly extends the real numbers, containing infinitesimals and infinitely large quantities; David Tall introduced one system in 1980.

Supersaturation

Supersaturation, also called supersolubility, is the state of a solution holding more dissolved solute than equilibrium allows at a given temperature; metastable, it is exploited in industrial crystallization, geochemistry, and pharmaceutical formulation.

Supersaurus

Supersaurus ("super lizard"), type species S. vivianae, is a giant diplodocid sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of Colorado, named by Jensen in 1985; 33–39 m long, 30–44 tons, with Dystylosaurus and Dinheirosaurus as synonyms.

Superscalar execution

Superscalar execution is a processor technique in which a CPU core issues and executes multiple instructions in the same clock cycle, found at runtime in hardware.

Superselection rule

A superselection rule is a quantum-mechanical rule forbidding coherent superpositions of states in different sectors, so their relative phases have no physical meaning, introduced in 1952.

Supersemar

Supersemar (Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret) is a letter President Sukarno signed on 11 March 1966 authorizing General Suharto to restore security, which Suharto used to take power.

Supersessionism

Supersessionism, also called replacement theology or fulfillment theology, is the traditional Christian claim that the church has replaced Israel in God's purposes, inheriting the covenant; Catholic and Lutheran churches abandoned it after the Holocaust.

Supersex

Supersex is a 2024 Italian Netflix limited series, created by Francesca Manieri, loosely inspired by porn star Rocco Siffredi, starring Alessandro Borghi; seven episodes, released 6 March 2024 after a Berlinale premiere.

Oct 20, 2026

Supershit

Supershit is a beach break surf spot near Rantung, Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, at coordinates -8.9836, 116.7351, suited to intermediate surfers; the word also names a spice brand and a rare vulgar English noun.

Supersolid

Supersolidity is a state of matter in which particles form a crystal while flowing without friction as a superfluid, predicted decades before first observation in 2017.

Supersolid order in spin–orbit-coupled BECs

Supersolid order in spin–orbit-coupled Bose–Einstein condensates combines frictionless superfluid flow with a spontaneously striped density modulation in ultracold atoms, first observed at MIT in 2017 via Bragg reflection.

Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars

Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars (SARPBC), Psyonix's 2008 PS3/PSN vehicle soccer game built on Unreal Engine 3; predecessor of Rocket League, with boost-flight, supersonic demolitions, 8-player online, 4-player split-screen, Metacritic 67, delisted 2022.

Supersonic aircraft

A supersonic aircraft cruises faster than the speed of sound, above Mach 1. Only Concorde and the Soviet Tu-144 ever carried passengers, and none has flown since 2003.