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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Incandescence

Incandescence \In`can*des"cence\, n. [Cf. F. incandescence.] A white heat, or the glowing or luminous whiteness of a body caused by intense heat.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
incandescence

1650s, figurative, "state of being 'inflamed,'" from incandescent + -ence. Literal use from 1794.

Wiktionary
incandescence

n. 1 (context physics English) the emission of visible light by a hot body 2 the light so emitted 3 (context by extension English) great emotion, especially anger

WordNet
incandescence
  1. n. the phenomenon of light emission by a body as its temperature is raised [syn: glow]

  2. light from heat

Wikipedia
Incandescence

Incandescence is the emission of electromagnetic radiation (including visible light) from a hot body as a result of its temperature. The term derives from the Latin verb incandescere, to glow white.

Incandescence is a special case of thermal radiation. Incandescence usually refers specifically to visible light, while thermal radiation refers also to infrared or any other electromagnetic radiation.

For a detailed discussion of the intensity and spectrum (color) of incandescence, see the article: thermal radiation.

Incandescence (novel)

Incandescence is a 2008 science fiction novel by Australian author Greg Egan. The book is based on the idea that the theory of general relativity could be discovered by a pre-industrial civilisation.

Usage examples of "incandescence".

By that time the warhead received its signal to detonate and the fuse flashed into incandescence, lighting off an intermediate explosive set in the center of the main explosive, which erupted into a white-hot segment that detonated the high-explosive cylinder of the unit in the nose cone aft of the seeker and navigation modules forward of the central processor.

Out here, beyond the conurbs and exurbs, it was a great streaming veil, a shower of incandescence falling ceaselessly across the sky.

Thunder crashed through the inner space of the Matrix, and the dark of nothingness was riven by a picosecond of silvery incandescence.

The enemy beams shot back upon themselves and rebounded in all directions, in the same spectacular exhibition of frenzied incandescence which had marked the resistance of the Titanian sphere to a similar attack.

The worshippers come down the steps blinking and damp, moving slowly and with the extreme caution which a new and vaster environment always exacts, heading across lawns or toward the parking lots where their cars seem to be swimming in the bluesteel incandescence of the gravel.

Crescent Bathhouse lit from within, a bauble of incandescence quickly glimpsed before the iceboat tacked sharply and raced down the frozen Tobrin toward the sea.

The outer wall was blazing in incandescence in a moment, and the heavy relux screens seemed to leap into place over the windows as the blasting heat, radiated from the incandescent walls flooded in.

Near the bow of one of the alien seacraft, a conical protrusion suddenly glowed into violet incandescence.

Over the snow-covered stretch of level shoreland the moon poured a flood of silver incandescence.

Below, in the little valley, the resplendent colourations of the million flowers, roses, lilies, hyacinths, carnations, violets, glowed like incandescence in the golden light of the rising moon.

Whereupon Amerind steel workers sawed apart a robot hull that was no longer a fuel tank because its fuel was gone, and they built a demountable solar mirror some sixty feet across—which African mechanics deftly powered—and suddenly there was a spot of incandescence even brighter than the sun of Xosa II, down on the planet's surface.

Down to the grids of light that marked cities, and then sun-fire billowed out in circles, rising in domes of incandescence toward the stratosphere .

That pinpoint of incandescence must be a White Dwarf - one of those strange, fierce little stars, no larger than the Earth, yet containing a million times its mass.

It made a big blaze of such incredible incandescence that the aluminum paint on jet planes miles below it was scorched and blistered instantly.

Fleetingly, she noticed the brazier smouldering in the far corner, a long branding iron protruding from the incandescence.