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Definition of "virial" []

  • Common misspelling of viral. (adjective)
  • Half of the product of the stress of attraction or repulsion with the distance between two particles. (noun)

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Use "virial" in a sentence
  • "In 1933, the Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, of the California Institute of Technology, applied the virial theorem to the Coma cluster of galaxies and, using this logic, obtained evidence for unseen mass [ref]."
  • "Since the motion of many galaxies appears to be fairly uniform, the virial theorem (an offshoot of Newtonian mechanics) can be applied, telling us that the total kinetic energy of the galaxies should be half of the total gravitational binding energy (U)."
  • "It may have a sort of virial theorem result to it."