The plasma-physics tag has no wiki summary.
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Is fire plasma?
Is Fire a Plasma?
If not, what is it then?
If yes why, don't we teach kids this basic example?
UPDATE: I probably meant a regular commonplace fire of the usual temperature. That should simplify ...
17
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4answers
487 views
Why does only one side of a neon lamp glow?
When applying DC to a neon lamp, only one electrode glows:
The voltages across the lamps are left: DC (left lead positive), middle: DC (right lead positive), and right: AC.
But... why? The ...
11
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2answers
268 views
Why were space physicists wrong about the location of the heliopause?
The heliopause is now estimated to be something around 100 AU (1 AU = Astronomical unit = about the earth sun distance). See the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliosphere
From ...
11
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2answers
659 views
Does Fire Conduct Electricity? Why?
Recently, I have stumbled upon a YouTube video by Veritasium describing the conductivity of fire. My question is: how exactly does fire conduct electricity? I am a high school student; therefore ...
8
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4answers
301 views
Is solar wind positively charged?
Many times I heared that the solar wind consists of protons and alpha particles. The both are positively charged, but are there electrons in solar wind?
8
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1answer
55 views
Voyager 1 cosmic ray strips
In the last months Voyager 1 has experienced a dramatic drop in the cosmic ray radiation, which was been exceptionally uniform for the last 10 years, except for the past july 28 and august 14 events, ...
7
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2answers
227 views
How large can you make a tokamak?
I've seen questions on how small you can make a tokamak. But I haven't yet seen any "physical" upper limit on the tokamak design.
If you take a wind turbine for example, doubling the linear ...
5
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4answers
198 views
what is the basic form of the 'fire'? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is fire matter or energy?
What is the basic form of fire? physics defines every entity by a basic form either solid or liquid or as a gas,
example: water is liquid,
ice ...
5
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1answer
156 views
What causes the structure visible in first few milliseconds of a nuclear explosion?
Following on from this question, here is a high-speed photograph of a nuclear explosion, taken about 1 ms after detonation: (source) As anna v pointed out, several similar images can be seen in a ...
5
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2answers
284 views
What causes fluorescent light bulb to light up when it is near a plasma globe? Can this phenomenon be used to generate electricity in a circuit?
When a fluorescent light bulb is placed near a plasma globe, despite the fact there isn't a closed circuit, a part of the light blulb would light up.
I tried measuring the voltage of the air ...
5
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0answers
201 views
Who invented the term “Coulomb logarithm”?
Who is the author of the term "Coulomb logarithm"? In fact, Coulomb logarithm was computed by Langmuir in his paper of 1928 where the term "plasma" was introduced into physics, but the term "Coulomb ...
4
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5answers
441 views
Can Plasma Ignite?
This question on Scifi.se: Why does warp plasma burn green? mentions a fictional type of plasma called 'Warp Plasma' that is capable of igniting and when it does it sprays plasma flames/gas out of ...
4
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1answer
105 views
Would it be possible to have an electron-less solid?
We can create plasmas quite easily, indeed you can buy a plasma cutter and generate it all day long for less than $500. Would it be possible to trap a plasma, say magnetically, and cool it so much ...
4
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1answer
192 views
What is the mathematics behind artificially generated plasmas via electric fields?
The ionization degree of a plasma is given by the Saha equation, which depends on the temperature and the particle specific ionization energy. In thermal equilibrium, the relation between ionization ...
3
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4answers
247 views
Could ball lightening be a form of plasma?
With regard to the recent arXiv article:
J. D. Shelton, Eddy Current Model of Ball Lightening
http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.1224
I wonder if this is a reasonable explanation of ball lightening, or if ...
3
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2answers
163 views
Will ideal gas law apply to plasma?
I have read that plasma is a state of matter that resembles gas but it consists of ions and electrons coexisting. So my question is : If plasma is just ionized gas, will ideal gas law apply for it ?
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2answers
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Pressures Necessary for Carbon Detonation
Carbon detonation is a characteristic event of Type 1a Supernova (EDIT: where an accreting white dwarf near the Chandrashankar limit of 1.4 solar masses explodes), an extremely important standard ...
3
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2answers
131 views
Can low temperature plasma exist?
Plasma is ionized gas which as far as I know only occurs at high temperatures. When plasma cools down it tends to recombine with the electrons present and turn back into gas. But what if the ...
3
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1answer
161 views
Compressing a fluid with arbitrarily large force in an infinitely strong chamber
Imagine I have an infinitely strong container of volume $v_1$, and I fill it with some monoatomic fluid like liquid hydrogen. I then proceed to compress the walls of the container to reduce its ...
3
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1answer
70 views
estimating ion collisions from Vlasov equations
Suppose you have a distribution function $ f_{\alpha}( \vec{r} , \vec{p} , t)$ obtained from Vlasov equations for a certain $\alpha$ species, say some ions.
Is there a rigorous way (in the domain of ...
3
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1answer
132 views
What velocity must an aircraft achieve for its shock wave to transform to plasma?
A follow-up to After what speed air friction starts to heat up an object?
I understand there may be technological limitations at present ... but, is it theoretically possible for a body to travel ...
3
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0answers
27 views
Richtmyer Meshkov instability in MHD [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Richtmyer Meshkov instability in MHD
The Richtmyer Meshkov instability in Hydrodynamics:-
1) When shock wave interacts with the contact discontinuity, it accumulates the ...
2
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5answers
555 views
Where on Earth can you find plasma?
Ok, so not that 'where on earth', like literally - 'Where on Earth'.
Where on Earth, can you find matter in the 4th state, i.e. the plasma state?
2
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2answers
833 views
How to debunk 'The Electric Universe'?
My father is a generally intelligent person, however he has latched onto a theory which I believe to be completely incorrect.
He doesn't believe in gravity, but rather subscribes to an 'Electrical ...
2
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2answers
154 views
What shape is needed to contain a blade made of plasma?
Although this may stray into the subject of fiction, this question requires physics expertise.
If one were able to create a strong enough magnetic field to contain a blade of plasma, what shape would ...
2
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1answer
623 views
Can Gases conduct Electricity?
Liquid electrolytes ionize and hence a current can pass through them. So if a gas can ionize, can it conduct electricity too? If so, what are a few such gases?
2
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1answer
144 views
What's the second terminal in corona discharge?
I don't get corona discharge. There's an electrode (say naked high-voltage wire) and a current develops from that wire and ionizes gas (air) on its way.
But where does this current go? What's the ...
2
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2answers
281 views
Possible colors of fire?
I have learnt that depending on the various gases those are involved in the reaction that produces fire, different colors (yellow, red or blue) of flames become visible.
I have a question .. what are ...
2
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1answer
213 views
What is non-thermal plasma?
I read about non-thermal plasma, but I still have some questions:
The ions and neutral particles are not in thermal equilibrium with the electron, does that mean that the overall temperature is low ...
2
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1answer
22 views
Application of plasma actuators for flow control of moving objects
I've recently been to a converence on plasma physics were, to my surprise, a lot of presentations were concerned with plasma actuator.
Could someone, preferably in the field, tell me how long people ...
2
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0answers
79 views
After quantization of electron vibrations, do we need electrons anyway?
The title question is not ment in a general context, but one in which goes to the plasmon theory.
In that case, how is are the statistics (boson vs. fermions) of plasmons determined?
And is there an ...
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2answers
97 views
Why doesn't a neon sign seem that hot?
I heard that neon signs contain plasma, why aren't they hot?
is it because the electrons and ions do not hit the lamp's wall?
Is it because it is non thermal plasma and electrons and ions are not in ...
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3answers
181 views
Plasma and Plasma Globes
Plasma is the fourth state of matter. Wikipedia says, that all the gaseous atoms will be ionized into positive ions and free electrons at extremely high temperatures. But, what does this explain in a ...
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2answers
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1answer
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What are the problems in quark-gluon plasma? [closed]
Someone (T.D.Lee?) said that quark-gluon plasma would (after 1980?) be very important to understand high-energy physics experiments.
I read some description of this new state in wikipedia ...
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1answer
110 views
Reference request for the terminology and usage of different types of plasmas
I'm looking into discharge models, specifically for combustion prcesses, and I'm swamped by the number of different types of plasmas and their respective treatments (thermal plasmas, non-thermal ...
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1answer
185 views
role of pure mathematics in fusion?
Is there any way a pure math guy can get his rigorous math fix while simultaneously moving fusion research forward? Is fusion simply too complicated to take a pure math approach? What open math ...
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0answers
13 views
Does phase lead or lag in a plasma?
Plasmas have an index of refraction less than 1. So say you sent one beam of light through a plasma and another one along a path just as long but in free space. Is the plasma beam's phase lead or lag ...
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1answer
37 views
Effect of electric field of plasma sheaths
How will an electric fields affect the formation of plasma sheaths?
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2answers
3k views
Is Keshe's technology for real?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UrN99RELqwo
They clain they can create free energy using plasma reactors. Is this fake?
M.T. Keshe said that several entities, ...
0
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3answers
61 views
Plasma Stability
Plasma consists of positive(ions) and negative(electrons) charges. Ions repel each other, so do the electrons, in the mean time ions attract electrons and vice versa, what will be the net result? Does ...
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1answer
79 views
Is NaCl vapour plasma?
Yesterday I asked a question at Chemistry SE, which is if the molten NaCl molecules have enough energy to break into free moving ions, won't be the Na Cl vapor contain free moving ions? So, I've got ...
0
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1answer
53 views
Does (will) wind affect plasma (electical spark passing through a gap)?
Does (will) wind affect plasma (electical spark passing through a gap) in a way such as it affects fire?
My guess is no because it's like light, but still thought its worth asking.
Thanks
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2answers
307 views
Matter in superconductive state [closed]
We distinguish between the states of matter: gas, liquid and solid. Possibly we could add the plasma state and/or the superconductive state as new states of matter. Phase transistions at certain ...
0
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1answer
32 views
Are the ions in a fluorescent lamps concentrated near the electrodes?
Are the ions in a fluorescent lamps concentrated near the electrodes , and just the electrons move to the other electrode or the positive mercury ions move too?
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0answers
14 views
How strong a solar flare needs to be to be easily seen on a projected white light image?
The first and the storgest solar flare so far is detected by simply projecting the Sun with optics on a paper. The flare was so intense that it was brighter than the photosphere beneath it.
Nowadays ...
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1answer
106 views
What would happen to plasma when the temperature drop in 3 x 10-8 s to absolute zero or very close to absolute zero? [closed]
EDIT:
What if the speed of the transition from plasma-hot temperature went to absolute zero (or something very close to absolute zero) was really fast e.g. 3 x 10-8 s or something close to the speed ...
0
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0answers
158 views
Is the quantum magnetic field effect real?
Does this http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=81 make sense to you guys? Is there any reason it wouldn't work. It seems like ...
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1answer
119 views
Why not an Electric Theory of Everything? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How to debunk ‘The Electric Universe’?
I am just wondering why there exists such a strong feeling within the physics community against theories such as Plasma Physics ...
