← All parts of this equation

Equation 100 · Part 3 · No Particle Without a Cosigner

Symbol c^2

a≈γ2c2/ra \approx \gamma^2 c^2/r
c2c^2

What this part means

The square of c: multiply c by itself.

Its job in the formula

c2c^2 is squared: multiply the underlying quantity by itself. The square is a mathematical operation, not a second independent variable.

The passage around this formula

Electrons circulating in a storage ring undergo enormous proper acceleration — for an ultra-relativistic beam of Lorentz factor γ\gamma on a ring of radius r , the proper centripetal acceleration is a ≈\approx γ2\gamma^2 c2c^2/r . For beam parameters typical of a large electron-positron collider, with γ\gamma of order 2×\times10^5 and r of order several kilometers, this works out to a ∼\sim 8×\times10^{23}\,m s−2\mathrm{m\,s^{-2}} , corresponding by the Unruh formula to TUT_U = ℏ\hbar a/(2π\pi c kBk_B) ∼\sim 3×\times10^3\,K\mathrm K — a temperature scale that is, remarkably, not astronomically small, unlike the roughly 10^{-19}\,K\mathrm K an Earth-bound laboratory accelerometer would need a planet’s worth of…

Read this part in the article →

Learn the underlying idea

An exponent tells how a base is used in multiplication. In x³, x is the base and 3 is the exponent: x³ = x × x × x.

Open the illustrated exponents: repeated multiplication and powers guide →

See this notation across published equations →

Sources cited in the surrounding passage

These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.