solid angle
- noun
- /ˈsɒlɪd ˈæŋɡəl/
- Specialized
:
ángulo sólido
- In geometry, the solid angle is measured in steradians and represents the three-dimensional equivalent of a two-dimensional angle.
- solid angle coverage
- solid angle detector
- large solid angle
Examples
-
The phase function defines the probability of photons being scattered into a unit solid angle.
Academic text (1994) -
The detector's solid-angle coverage of the target is very close to 4π.
Academic text (2005) -
It left about a third of the solid angle uncovered.
Academic text (1995) -
This Omega is the solid angle over which the source emits.
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For nuclear collisions at RHIC, the intensity can be measured in terms of the number of particles (mostly pions) emitted into a given interval of solid angle.
Academic text (2003) -
When measuring the brightness of stars, astronomers often calculate the solid angle subtended by the star's light at the observer's location.
-
The solid angle formed by the intersection of three planes can be visualized as the region viewed from a point amidst those planes.
Synonyms
The space at a corner where three or more flat faces of a solid meet
Surface Forms
Morphology
The term is a direct composition of 'solid' (three-dimensional/3D) and 'angle' (a measure between rays or lines), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to an angle in three-dimensional space; the precise technical definition and unit (steradians) are specialized but do not prevent the basic sense from being predictable. This geometric compounding is cross-linguistically common, making the expression transparently compositional for learners.
Etymology
Solid angle comes from imagining an ordinary angle but in space: picture a cone or a slice of the space that opens from one point and points outward. The word solid shows it is about space (not a flat surface) and angle describes how wide that cone is, so the term means 'how much of the space around a point is covered'.
