Physical world and mathematics

Kinetic isotope effect

The kinetic isotope effect (KIE) is the change in a reaction's rate constant caused by isotopic substitution, arising from nuclear mass differences and widely used to establish reaction mechanisms.

Kinetic methods for determining organic reaction mechanisms

Kinetic methods determine organic reaction mechanisms by measuring how reaction rates depend on concentrations and temperature, then comparing the results with rate laws predicted by candidate mechanisms.

Kinetic Monte Carlo

Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) is a stochastic simulation method that models a system's temporal evolution by executing events like atomic jumps and reactions with probabilities proportional to their rate constants.

Kinetic resolution

Kinetic resolution separates the two enantiomers of a racemic compound by reacting them at different rates with a chiral catalyst, yielding up to 50% of one enantiomer.

Kinetic theory of gases

The kinetic theory of gases, also called the kinetic molecular theory, is a physical model explaining a gas's pressure, temperature, and viscosity through the constant random motion of its molecules.

Oct 10, 2026

Kingsley Charles Dunham

Sir Kingsley Charles Dunham (1910–2001) was a British geologist, Professor of Geology at Durham University and Director of the Institute of Geological Sciences from 1967 to 1975.

Kink band

A kink band is a tabular zone, usually mesoscopic, in which a rock's foliation or layering is sharply deflected; kink bands form in strongly layered rocks under compression.

Kink instability

The kink instability, also called the Kruskal–Shafranov instability, is a magnetohydrodynamic instability in which an electric current makes a plasma column bend into a growing helix.

Kinsevere

Kinsevere is an open-pit copper and cobalt mine in Haut-Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, owned by MMG Limited and producing LME Grade A copper cathode.

Kinsey Anderson

Kinsey Anderson (1926–2012) was an American space physicist and UC Berkeley professor who built balloon, rocket, and satellite instruments to study Earth's aurora, solar flares, and the solar wind.

Kip Thorne

Kip Thorne is an American theoretical physicist at Caltech who co-founded the LIGO project and shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for the first direct observation of gravitational waves.

Kirchhoff rod model

The Kirchhoff rod model is an elastic rod theory, presented by Gustav Kirchhoff in 1859, in which a slender rod bends and twists but cannot stretch or shear.

Kirchhoff's circuit laws

Kirchhoff's circuit laws, also known as Kirchhoff's rules, are two rules formulated by Gustav Kirchhoff in 1845 stating that current is conserved at junctions and potential changes sum to zero around any closed loop.

Kirchhoff's diffraction formula

Kirchhoff's diffraction formula, also called the Fresnel–Kirchhoff diffraction formula, is a scalar integral giving the wave amplitude beyond an aperture, derived by Gustav Kirchhoff in 1887.

Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation

Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation states that a body in thermal equilibrium emits and absorbs equally at every wavelength, published by Gustav Kirchhoff in 1860.

Kirchhoff's law of thermochemistry

Kirchhoff's law of thermochemistry, named after the German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff, states that a reaction enthalpy changes with temperature by the difference in heat capacities of products and reactants.

Kirchhoff's theorem (graph theory)

Kirchhoff's theorem, also called the matrix-tree theorem, states that the number of spanning trees of a finite graph equals any cofactor of its Laplacian matrix.

Kirillov orbit method

The Kirillov orbit method, also called the orbit method, parametrizes the irreducible unitary representations of a Lie group by its coadjoint orbits; A. A. Kirillov introduced it in 1962.

Kirk A. Peterson

Kirk A. Peterson is an American theoretical chemist at Washington State University known for developing correlation consistent Gaussian basis sets, including relativistic sets for heavy elements.

Oct 10, 2026

Kirk Bryan (oceanographer)

Kirk Bryan is an oceanographer who led ocean modeling at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and co-created the first coupled atmosphere–ocean climate model with Syukuro Manabe in 1969.

Kirk S. Schanze

Kirk S. Schanze is an American chemist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, known for conjugated polyelectrolytes and for founding ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Kirkwood gap

A Kirkwood gap, such as the Hecuba gap, is a depleted band of main-belt asteroids at a mean-motion resonance with Jupiter, named for astronomer Daniel Kirkwood, who announced the gaps in 1866.

Kishan Dholakia

Kishan Dholakia is an optical physicist and biophotonics researcher at the University of Adelaide known for using shaped light beams to trap and image microscopic particles.

Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (किशोर वैज्ञानिक प्रोत्साहन योजना)

Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (किशोर वैज्ञानिक प्रोत्साहन योजना, KVPY) was an Indian government fellowship in basic sciences, run by IISc Bangalore and merged into INSPIRE in 2022.

Kislev

Kislev (Hebrew: כִּסְלֵו), also transliterated Chislev, is the ninth month of the Jewish calendar, falling in November and December and best known as the month in which Hanukkah begins.

Kisspeptin

Kisspeptin is a group of peptide hormones produced from the KISS1 gene that acts on the kisspeptin receptor in the brain and is essential for puberty and fertility.

Kit H. Bowen

Kit H. Bowen, also known as Kit Bowen, is an American chemist at Johns Hopkins University known for negative-ion photoelectron spectroscopy of clusters, including uranium-containing anions.