# All Questions

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### Hydrostatic equilibrium of a star derivation

I've been told to revise the derivation that proves $\frac{\mathrm{d}P}{\mathrm{d}r} =\frac{GM(r)p(r)}{r^2}$ where brackets indicate a function of, P is pressure and p is density. Rather helpfully he ...
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### How much energy does lowering an object into a black hole generate?

An object of mass m is slowly lowered into a black hole of mass 1000 m. Is the amount of braking energy larger than $0.6 mc^2$? Now what if, after lowering the mass close to the event horizon, we ...
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### Values of SM parameters at one certain scale

The general question is: What are the values of Standard Model parameters (in the $\bar{MS}$ renormalization scheme) at some scale e.g. $m_{Z}$? As its parametrization in Yukawa matrices is not unique ...
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### Does electron go through a forbidden state when annihilate with positron?

Let's consider an electron-positron pair with total spin equal to zero. When it annihilates it can not emit only one photon because it would have zero momentum and nonzero energy. The pair emits two ...
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### Black hole related questions

Well I have a couple of questions regarding Black holes so here they are, 1.Shouldn't they be called black spheres?(holes are in 2D right?) 2.What will happen if black holes collide?(If they can) ...
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### How did Enrico Fermi calculate the classical Fermi Problem?

From Wikipedia: Fermi was known for his ability to make good approximate calculations with little or no actual data, hence the name. One example is his estimate of the strength of the atomic bomb ...
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### What is a gauge transformation of the metric in GR?

I'm confused by this question: Why can't General Relativity be written in terms of physical variables? I can't quite see how you can make any change to the metric without either: (a) changing ...
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### References for phase-transitions in supersymmetric field theory

Apart from other reasons, recently my interest in this area got piqued when I heard an awesome lecture by Seiberg on the idea of meta-stable-supersymmetry-breaking. I am looking for references on ...
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### How can one build a multi-scale physics model of fluid flow phenomena?

I am working on a problem in Computational Fluid Dynamics, modeling multi-phase fluid flow through porous media. Though there are continuum equations to describe macroscopic flow (darcy's law, ...
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### Why (infra-)red light is not used in diagnostics?

I noticed that human body conducts red visible light quite well. A hand placed over a powerful red lamp seems to be semi-transparent while over any other color it does not. Possibly the light ...
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### How thin a filter to filter particles out of salt water to make salt for human consumption?

I have gathered some salt in the Death Valley and for the fun of it I would like to clean it and make it edible. The process I plan to follow is simple: Dissolve the salt in water. Boil water for ...
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### Would a light or a heavy ball roll fastest down a slope?

A small, light ball and a larger, heavier ball are released from the top of a slope. Which will move further? which will come down faster?
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### Does mass affects accelleration of an object in a sloapy movement? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Would a light or a heavy ball roll fastest down a slope? Is there a change of the accelleration of an object moving on a sloapy plane if the mass is changed?
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### To calculate pressure at point in a vertical water pipe of given diameter

Is it possible to calculate pressure at a point in a pipe, where a solenoid valve shall be placed, given that the pipe carries water (utility supplied, regular water) from an overhead tank (at a ...
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### Do we need a quantum theory of gravity in order to describe photons blueshifted past planck energy?

If yes, then how does this accord with relativity: the laws of physics are the same in all reference frames? We can move from a reference frame in which the photon has near zero energy density, to a ...
503 views

### Kinetic energy absorbing in order to avoid damages?

is this possible? To absorb kinetic energy and disable inertia force? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnKPbAbJI0w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_5oseSVUc4
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### How complete is our understanding of general-relativistic solutions for extremal black holes?

Putting aside quantum mechanics (or at least putting aside the question of fermions), is our knowledge of extremal General-Relativity solutions good enough that we would be able to rule out a ...
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### Why are geons unstable? Are there other problems with geons?

I read in various places geons are "generally considered unstable." Why? How solid is this reasoning? Is the reason geons are not studied much anymore because we can't make more progress without ...
219 views

### Could gravity hold electron charge together?

Could the gravitational force be what holds the charge of the electron together? It seems to be the only obvious possibility; what other ideas have been proposed besides side-stepping the issue and ...
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### Who discovered momentum?

I read some text about momentum in Wikipedia, but I didn't find any information who discovered momentum. Is the momentum a philosophic principle?
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### How long does it take to weigh an uncooperative mass?

(This is curiosity, not a practical question. It was inspired by standing still for a digital scale, and considering whether it would be possible to make a scale that could handle being jumped on, ...
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### How can indeterminacy in quantum mechanics be derived from lack of ability to observe a cause?

I don't get this part of quantum mechanics. I get the part that you can't observe particles and not affect their behavior because you are shooting photons to them while you are observing them, but ...
661 views

### Should you run when under rain?

When it's raining, would you get less wet if you run or more wet? I think you will get less wet, because rain is coming down in a constant volume and if you run you will have a shorter amount of time ...
188 views

### Could strings be geons?

Is it possible that string theory strings are geons? This may be an overly speculative or naive question, but is there an obvious reason why not? Both strings and geons seem to have roughly the same ...
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### How is this classical “paradox” resolved in electromagnetism?

A magnet and a coil move relative to each other. In the frame of reference of the magnet, there is a magnetic field and consequently a force acting on the charges in the coil according to the Lorentz ...
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### Is $f=ma$ an identity?

In his The Principles of Natural Knowledge, Alfred North Whitehead writes that famous $f=ma$ is an identity: It has been popular to define force as the product of mass and acceleration. The ...
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### Modular invariance for higher genus

As far as I understand, there are roughly 2 "common" kinds of 2D conformal field theories: Theories that are defined only on the plane, more precisely, on any surface of vanishing genus. Such a ...
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### Do Maxwell’s Equations contain the Ideal Gas Law?

Maxwell’s Equations contain some other Laws as special cases. Does it possibly include the Ideal Gas Law as well? – the idea being that material substances can be modeled by appropriate subsets of the ...
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### Earth-Centered Inertial (ECI) reference frame as approximate inertial frame of reference

In many practical applications, one can consider the Earth-Centered Inertial (ECI) reference frame approximately as an inertial reference system, though strictly speaking, it is non-inertial. Is ...
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### Why doesn't helium start to fuse while there is still hydrogen fuel?

In all the descriptions of the stellar life cycle it seems as though helium doesn't start being fused until all (most?) of the hydrogen is gone. Is this true? Why is this? It seems counter ...
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### In Scully and Druhl delayed choice quantum eraser experiment, are there limits to the lengths of the delay?

I'm in humanities, not physics, so please bear with me. I am trying to understand this experiment and have a few unanswered questions. I have read the other posts on this site that discuss the ...
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### How to prove equivalence of RG flow of QFT coupling constant and diagrammatic resummation at fixed renormalization scale?

QFT books say that solving the RG equation $\frac {dg} {d\textbf{ln} \mu}=\beta(g)$, using the one-loop beta function, is to the "leading log" approximation equivalent to resumming infinitely many ...
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### Can a big microwave used to dry clothes?

I was wondering if it is possible for a microwave in principle to dry clothes (assuming of course it is big enough).
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### Derivation of Brillouin-Wigner theory for coupled subpaces

I recall faintly from my quantum theory lecture that there was a really neat way to derive Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theory for the special case of two coupled subspaces that involved a geometric ...
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### Does an interaction of entangled particles with each-other cause decoherence?

I'll apologize in advance if this is not an appropriate place for my question. My background is not in physics, and my understanding of quantum mechanics is extremely rudimentary at best, so I hope ...
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### generation of arbitrary potentials

Suppose you have as many electrically charged particles as needed (even countably many) and consider the open unit ball centered at some point in space. For every continuous real valued function on ...
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### Time reversal symmetry and T^2 = -1

I'm a mathematician interested in abstract QFT. I'm trying to undersand why, under certain (all?) circumstances, we must have $T^2 = -1$ rather than $T^2 = +1$, where $T$ is the time reversal ...
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### Will a photon emitted from something moving quickly have a shorter wavelength?

If a photon is emitted from a light source moving at any speed, the photon will nonetheless always move at c (assuming it is emitted in a vacuum.) If the speed of a photon's emitter cannot influence ...
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### Entropy of a mass arrangement around the earth

An mind experiment, taking the entire Earth as an isolated system Then this is the initial state: N masses are distributed around the earth, at different height. (for example we can use a single ...