# All Questions

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### What would be the speed of a hypothethetical object created during the big bang

What would be the speed of a hypothethetical object created during the big bang, and that has been moving around in the universe and that is now close to the earth, so the time elapsed (from the ...
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### What causes the permittivity and permeability of vacuum?

When light travels through a material, it gets "slowed down" (at least its net speed decreases). The atoms in the material "disturb" the light in some way which causes it to make stops on its path. ...
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### Derivation of the Thermal Noise Spectrum

The thermal noise spectrum is given by: $$\mathcal{S}(f) = \frac{\hbar f}{2(e^{\frac{\hbar f}{kT}} - 1)}$$ This equation seems really similar to the Dirac-Fermi distribution but where does it come ...
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### Force constant of metals - Kohn anomaly

In Introduction to Solid State Physics (Kittel), it assumed the force constant between plane $s$ and $s+p$ $C_p=A\frac{\sin pk_0a}{pa}$ in metals to represent a Kohn anomaly. It says such a form is ...
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### Hydrogen Transition Rate from n',l to n',l'

I am trying to solve Problem 9.22 in Griffiths' Intro to Quantum Mechanics (2nd Ed.) that asks to show the spontaneous emission rate for a transition from n,l to n',l' in hydrogen is given by ...
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### Why do ships lean to the outside, but boats lean to the inside of a turn?

Small vessels generally lean into a turn, whereas big vessels lean out. Why do ships lean to the outside, but boats lean to the inside of a turn?
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### What is the Physical Significance of Tr(A) w.r.t. Matrix Representations in Group Theory

I've seen the post on mathoverflow.SE asking almost the same question, and I have indeed flipped through said answers, but most are in a more general context ie quantum mechanics and do not provide a ...
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### Number density of LO and LA phonons as a function of temperature?

I'd like to know the how the number density of longitudinal optical (LO) and longitudinal acoustic (LA) phonons varies as a function of temperature of the material. Is there a simple expression for ...
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### How can black holes be so dense?

It is said that if the Earth were a black hole, it would be the size of a peanut!? How is this density possible, are atoms really that sparse that they can be compressed so tightly? Is there some ...
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### Why isn't perpetual motion possible, even though we are so technologically advanced?

Why perpetual motion wouldn't be possible if we are so technological advanced? It is just a thing that I was wondering for too long. I mean, we are able to create so powerful permanent magnets, like ...
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### How can a wave interfere with itself?

We know that waves can interfere with themselves to form interference patterns for example photons and electrons. How is this possible? I know it does happen but is there a proper representation or a ...
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### Can a solid object float on a frictionless liquid?

Assuming the solid is less dense than the liquid, will a solid object float on a frictionless liquid? I can imagine that due to the pressure gradient the object will float, but I can also imagine ...
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### Horizontal magnetic attraction?

I came across and interesting effect today, I have a dozen of Neodymium magnets around my house. And, they are very strong. Anyhow, one of them got attracted to my large steel plate table(use for ...
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### Moment of inertia of a hollow sphere wrt the centre?

I've been trying to compute the moment of inertia of a uniform hollow sphere (thin walled) wrt the centre, but I'm not quite sure what was wrong with my initial attempt (I've come to the correct ...
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### Vanishing Planets?

If we put a solid sphere in space, it will lose some molecules which will form a sort of an atmosphere around it so that we have the required vapour pressure for solid-vapour equilibrium (Temp. of ...
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### What is the longitudinal difference between the sub­solar point and the magnetic poles at time $t$ (hours)?

I'm trying to convert geomagnetic coordinate to geographic, but there are some steps in the paper which I'm reading, that I don't understand. I have the geomagnetic latitude centered around the ...
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### Classical static equilibrium in atomic physics

Consider a collection of $n+1$ mass weighted points in $\mathbb{R}^3$. Suppose we have one mass located at the point (0,0,0) with mass $m\in\mathbb{N}$ and further suppose we have $n$ masses arranged ...
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### How to relate wingtips vortices with the energy loss it engenders?

On planes, wingtips vortices engender a loss in terms of lift, and an incresed of the drag, so an energy loss. Is there any possibilty to find a mathematical model relating both ? Thanks for the help. ...
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### Is there an upper limit to temperature in thermodynamics or statistical mechanics

In many presentations of statistical mechanics where we have a system of particles having mass, such as the molecules of an ideal gas, the temperature is often equated to the average relative velocity ...
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### how does the mirror equation works and what lead to using of sign convention?

EVERYTHING HERE IS FOR CONCAVE MIRROR Everywhere I see the derivation of the mirror equation is given by placing an object before the focus and then proving similarity of the triangles to get to the ...
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### Why can't the outcome of a QM measurement be calculated a-priori?

Quantum Mechanics is very successful in determining the overall statistical distribution of many measurements of the same process. On the other hand, it is completely clueless in determining the ...
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### MotoGP motorcycles lift front wheel while exiting curve

I've seen multiple times now in MotoGP that motorcycles were leaving a curve, and because of the acceleration the front wheel is slightly leaving the ground. But at the same time they were still ...
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### Faster Than Light Communication Using Gravity?

Suppose two parties $A$ and $B$, some distance apart and at rest relative to each other both had control of one massive local object each. If party $A$ lifted their local object upward relative to ...
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### How to calculate fluid's temperature change in a pump?

To calculate the pressure at the outlet of a pump we use pump performance characteristics i.e. charts giving pump head as a function of volumetric flow. When the fluid flows through a pump, it's ...
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### In thermodynamic systems why must the free energy of the system be minimized?

Is this somehow a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics?
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### Time Reversal Invariance in Quantum Mechanics

I thought of a thought experiment that had me questioning how time reversal works in quantum mechanics and the implications. The idea is this ... you are going forward in time when you decide to ...
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### Dimensional regularization and the finite part

Let be a dimensional regularized integral $$\int d^{4-\epsilon}kF(k,m,s)= \frac{2}{\epsilon}+\frac{m^{2}}{3}(\gamma +log(4\pi)-\frac{1}{\epsilon}))$$ then formally if we elmiinate the divergent ...
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### Why the galaxies forms 2D plane (or spiral-like) instead of 3D ball (or spherical-like)?

Question: As we know (1) the macroscopic spatial dimension of our universe is 3 dimension, and (2) Gravity attracts massive objects together and the gravitational force is isotropic without ...
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### Infinite Resistive lattice problem

Ok so while there have been many discussions regarding the solution(say using the Fourier transform or the lattice Green's function approach) to the two-point resistance of an infinite-square ...
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### Hamiltonians, density of state, BECs

When working with Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in potentials, how can one tell what the density of state of a system of identical bosons given the Hamiltonian, $H$? (I have been told that it is ...
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### Can I move the atom nucleus only?

I was wondering if it is possible to move the atom nucleus and leave behind the electrons? I can imagine that the electrons will follow the nucleus. But what if the speed of the nucleus is almost the ...
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### Pressure loss in a syringe

I'm currently working on a problem which is really giving me some issues. The problem concerns the force required to expel water from a syringe. We have a 20ml syringe (which is $2\times10^{-5}$ ...
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### White light diffraction

I have a hard time understanding why light waves of different wavelengths diffract in a different manner. According to Huygens' principle, every point on the wavefront is a source of a secondary wave. ...
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### Magnetic Levitation For Space Travel

At 1 G, we feel at home. At 5 G's, normal people can stay awake. At 9 G's, trained pilots with G-suits can stay awake. At 25 G's, R.I.P. Unfortunately, these numbers are limiting for space travel, ...
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### Criteria for stable equilibrium [on hold]

A homogeneous wooden bar of length 10 cm, thickness 4 cm and weight 1 Kg is balanced on the top of a semicircular cylinder of radius R as shown below. What is the minimum radius of the semicircular ...
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### Why does the heaviest point on a spinning ball tend to become the topmost pole?

I have a mostly hollow, small clear plastic ball. Inside the ball is a weight stuck to the edge but the weight is smaller than the ball so the ball will always come to rest with the weight at the ...
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### Does non-mass-energy generate a gravitational field?

At a very basic level I know that gravity isn't generated by mass but rather the stress-energy tensor and when I wave my hands a lot it seems like that implies that energy in $E^2 = (pc)^2 + (mc^2)^2$ ...
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### How to measure speed of a ceiling fan?

I thought for fun I might measure how my ceiling fan slows down when turned off, and maybe find out what forces act on it when it slows down. My problem is that for that I need to measure its ...
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### When High-Speed Traveler is On Differently-Shaped Surface Compared to Observer, What Does Observer See When He/She Goes Around Corner?

As stated in my other question, the length of a traveler going at relativistic speeds compared to an observer only gets contracted in a single direction, i.e. the direction of motion. Well, what ...
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### What do matrices in the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble look like?

I've been reading a fair amount about quantum chaos, and random matrix theory comes up a lot. I get that they're looking at the distribution of eigenvalues from an ensemble of random matrices, but I ...
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### Range of poissons ratio

I know the range of poisson's ratio is -1 to 0.5 but how do you arrive at this expression? I am a 11th grade student and I am not too familiar with advanced physics
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### Meade DS 114 Telestar mount [on hold]

I'm having some problems with my Meade DS-114 telescope's Telestar mount. The motor works fine automatically rotating vertically, but horizontal rotation doesn't work at all on the mount. It just ...
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### Limits of Poisson's ratio in isotropic solid

For an isotropic solid, Poisson's ratio can be expressed in terms of stiffness constants as: $$\sigma = \frac{c_{11} - 2c_{44}}{2c_{11} - 2c_{44}}$$ Alternatively we may express Poisson's ratio in ...