All Questions

768 views

Energy Stored In A Capacitor (Slowly Moving Parallel Plates Together)

I think this is a canonical problem with capacitors, but I'm having difficulty understanding the paradox. In Purcell's Electricity And Magnetism, problem 3.16 reads: Calculate the electrical ...
139 views

Is the stability matrix of a linearised RG flow always diagonalisable?

This is a follow up on "Why are the eigenvalues of a linearized RG transformation real?". My question is simple: Is there some physical (or mathematical) reason for the stability matrix of ...
20 views

Do holes in objects affect their heat expansion [duplicate]

If you heat (assume evenly) a 5 mm sheet of metal containing a cut away hole 20 cm diameter, so it expands, what would happen to diameter of hole? Would it increase, decrease, stay same?
165 views

Free body diagram of mechanisms

The image below shows a mechanism with 2 pin joints. On one of the pin joints, there is a torsional spring that exerts a torque $M_s = \kappa \theta$ (rest state is at $\theta = 0$). A force $F$ is ...
15 views

I am looking for a good primer on Special relativity [duplicate]

I am starting a course in Gravity and Quantum Field Theory this year, and I have all of the prerequisites except for a few topics in Special Relativity. I have had some SR, but only the 1-dimensional ...
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Casimir effect with super conductors

Do the plates in the Casimir effect need to be metal? What if one uses super conductors? Is there any difference theoretically/experimentally?
102 views

Effect of Motion on Capacitors

What will happen if a capacitor is accelerated or rotated very very fast? Will its capacitance decrease? Will one of the plates be able to hold the electrons which is providing the Potential ...
649 views

Power dissipation in circuits:Why is high voltage used in power lines?

I know this question has been asked before, but there is one doubt I still cannot clear. Power dissipation is proportional to $I^2R$. Does this not mean that it is also proportional to $V^2/R$? If ...
50 views

How thin a practical capacitor can be?

According to the formula of a $parallel$ $plate$ capacitor... $C$ $=$ $\dfrac{\epsilon_0 A}{d}$ The thinner the capacitor, more the charge it will be able to store... And hence the graph should ...
459 views

What would we see if we looked at our Solar system from 2,000 light years away with our current technology?

Assuming the tables were turned and we would live in a system like Kepler-422/423/424, some 2,000 ly away. If we'd look at the Solar system with a telescope like Kepler and using techniques like ...
385 views

Weighing with One-Foot Scale

I stand with left foot on a scale and the other on a piece of effectively incompressible material at the same initial height at the scale's top surface. The weight shown is WL. I repeat with right ...
258 views

Unstable equilibrium in a pendulum

Consider a pendulum with a bob and a massless, rigid, hinged rod attached to the bob. The bob is at rest at the bottom most position. Neglecting friction, is it possible to impart such a velocity ...
68 views

Special relativity and missing factors of $c$

I am doing problems in a textbook called 'Introduction to Classical Mechanics' by David Morin. In one of the questions it says the following: In the lab frame, two particles move with speed $v$ ...
186 views

Vector fields and tensors in E&M

I'm confused by a very basic property of electric fields. The electric field is a vector field. Vectors are tensors. Wikipedia has the following statement in the article about the electromagnetic ...
68 views

Open string 4-tachyon amplitude for cylinder/annulus topology in bosonic string theory

One knows the formula for the open string $4$-tachyon amplitude for the disk topology in the bosonic string theory : it is proportional to the $s \leftrightarrow t \leftrightarrow u$ symmetrisation ...
33 views

Information retrieval from a database

Consider a database $\cal D$ containing $N$ entries $A_0, A_1, ... A_{N-1}$, which are some fixed and unknown strings of $k$ bits; you can access this database sending a coherent superposition of ...
271 views

Expectations values of position in quantum mechanics

In quantum mechanics, we can show that $$\langle r \rangle^{-1} \neq \langle r^{-1} \rangle$$ I can understand this mathematically as the integrals are different but can anyone explain physically - ...
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How does the weight of the pendulum's bob cause a torque?

I know that a force will cause a torque if the force has a perpendicular component to the distance from the pivot point. However, in the figure above, I can't seem to visualize how the weight of ...
53 views

Household Electricity

What is actually moving in the wires? Electrons and energy, right? With alternating current, electrons move from atom to atom, practically back and forth in the wires. Mainly, it is energy that is ...
97 views

If stars are ionized, where are the electrons?

As far as I know, universe is electrically neutral so, If stars are ionized, where are the electrons?
74 views

Potential Energy in solids: Why are different equations used for deriving lattice constants and for deriving the properties of phonons?

While deriving the equilibrium lattice constants we use expressions for potential like Lennard-Jones potential which have 6th and 12th order terms or Madelung energy for ionic crystals. While ...
688 views

Can mass be directly measured without measuring its weight?

From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass Inertial mass measures an object's resistance to being accelerated by a force (represented by the relationship F=ma). Active gravitational ...
6k views

Why do we use kilograms instead of newtons to measure weight in everyday life?

What was the reason to use kilograms to measure weight (e.g. body weight, market vegetables etc.) instead of using newtons?
153 views

What is the physical interpretation of the linear coefficient in this ODE for projectile motion?

For the second order ODE governing the position of a projectile subject to air resistance $$m\frac{d^2x}{dt^2} +k\frac{dx}{dt}+mg=0 \quad k>0, \> x(0)=0, \> x'(0)=V>0$$ a ...
112 views

What is the future of complexity theory in black-hole physics and string theory? [closed]

I found the recent work by Hayden and Harlow and Susskind very fascinating. I have also heard talks by Scott Aaronson about this emerging connection. In particular this idea of understanding ...
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Would an ideal gas be colder at higher altitude due to gravity?

Since gas molecules are affected by gravity, wouldn't that make gas molecules at higher than average elevation slower (at the top of their ballistic parabola) and thus colder than air molecules ...
239 views

Why does a Ball bounce back if Forces are Equal and Opposite?

When a ball is thrown onto a wall, the ball exerts a force onto the wall. According to Newton's Third Law, the wall will exert an equal and opposite force to the ball. Thus, how would the ball be able ...
130 views

Dicke states, spin squeezing and quantum metrology

Dicke states are by definition simultaneous eigenstates of the $J_z$ and $J^2$ operator. What is the difference between these states and Dicke squeezed (DS) states? I know that these are "entangled" ...
50 views

There is a popular youtube video of some metal beads being thrown out of a flask, literally hovering out of the container My question is how detailed a physical explanation of this phenomenon we ...
104 views

Calculating number of atoms per cell in a crystal. Nonsense question in class

I don't agree at all with this question, and I think my teacher does not understand his topic. I hope you can prove me wrong. The question was this one: Potassium crystallises in a Body Centered ...
31 views

Need advice for self study in physics [duplicate]

I need advice for self study in Physics. I have a good theoretical and practical background in math & statistics, but virtually no physics. My ultimate interest is cosmology / relativity / ...
24 views

Cronin enhancement in p-A collisions

What is the physical picture behind Cronin enhancement in proton-nucleus collisions at intermediate transverse momentum?
50 views

What sort of things do condensed matter experimentalists measure and how?

What sort of things do condensed matter experimentalists measure and how? Do they do scattering experiments? If voltages are measured then how? I want to know what specific experiments are done. The ...
90 views

What is an order parameter?

I've seen order parameter used in two different ways. One is to distinguish between an ordered and an unordered phase, like whether the net magnetization is stable or not. The second way is to ...