Solid angle a solid angle in steradians is the following ratio: where A is the spherical surface area and r is the radius of the considered sphere. Solid angles are often used in physics, in particular astrophysics. The solid angle of an object that is very far away is roughly proportional to the ratio of area to squared distance. Here "area" means the area of the object when projected along the viewing direction. The solid angle of a sphere measured from any point in its interior is 4 sr, and the solid angle subtended at the center of a cube by one
Surface and bulk erosion of two separate categories. In surface erosion, the erosion rate is directly proportional to the surface area of the material. For very thin materials, the surface area remains relatively constant when the material degrades, which allows surface erosion to be characterized as zero order release since the rate of degradation is constant. In bulk erosion, the erosion rate depends on the volume of the material. Due to degradation, the volume of the material decreases during bulk erosion causing the erosion rate to decrease over time. Therefore, bulk erosion rates are difficult to control since it is not zero order. To