# All Questions

426 views

### efficiency of electric cars vs gas? [closed]

I have been listening to my friends brag about electric cars and I can't seem to convince them that electricity is not some magic force that comes out of the wall outlet. It must be produced ...
66 views

### x-ray in oil droplets experment

In oil droplet experiment, x-ray makes the air molecules negatively charged. How does that work? X-ray carries high energy and ionizes air, doesn't that make air positively charged?
822 views

### Can someone be too late for being a great physicist? [duplicate]

I am a first year physics student, but I am 20 years old (pretty old for my country, average starting age is 18), because I started after leaving med school, which I find extremely jailed in ...
631 views

### What is the derivation of the formula for the probability of transmission through a barrier?

This site has a formula for the transmission probability over a barrier (in transistors): $$T \propto \exp [-2(2m^*/\hbar ^2)^{1/2}(q\phi)^{1/2} d ].$$ Where $T$ is the transmission probability ...
54 views

### Is this process possible for L=0? $e^+e^- \to 2\eta_c$

For the following $$e^+ e^- \to \eta_c \eta_c$$ I think it violates parity conservation so it can't happen, but is there any other reason as to why it can't take place? Or is it actually possible?
163 views

### about the rotation of the earth and gravity, when all continents were merged

A long time ago, I read that the gravity force isn't the same if you are near the Andes Mountains or if you are at Paris. So today I asked to myself if when all continents were one, if the difference ...
126 views

### Suppose a light wave with wavelength 3m. What happens if one tries to contain that wave within a 1m container?

Suppose a light wave with wavelength 3m. What happens if one tries to contain that wave within a 1m container? If I'm going about this entirely the wrong way or have wrong conceptions about light ...
247 views

I'm wondering about the Faddeev-Popov method described in Peskin Schroeder and also on page 7 in this link. What gives them the right to simply add the Gaussian $\omega$ and thus introduce the $\xi$ ...
404 views

### Dirac equation in QFT vs relativistic QM

How does the Dirac equation in quantum field theory solve the existing problems in the interpretation Dirac equation (as a single-particle wave equation) in relativistic quantum mechanics? EDIT: The ...
84 views

### If we were able to double the mass of the ordinary matter in the universe it will recollapse?

What will happen if we suppose to be able to add mass at the universe? For example doubling the mass of the ordinary matter?
114 views

### Apparent color of flame as superposition of spectral lines?

In some cases one can identify a substance by the color emitted as it burns in a flame. A green flame might indicate the presence of copper. So here is the question. If we know wavelength and ...
122 views

### Can we solve California's drought crisis by pointing parabolic mirrors at the ocean?

If you concentrated sunlight to points in the ocean, could you make the water evaporate significantly faster to induce a substantial amount of rain? Assuming you could do that, could you use silver ...
85 views

### Electric field in a cylinder

We have electric charge density $\rho(r) = kr$ in a cylinder of infinite height and radius $a$. I'm asked to find the electric field. I'm doing it using two methods and I don't undesrtand why then ...
269 views

### Is there a physical intuition for diamagnetic inequality?

Diamagnetic inequality implies, quantum mechanically, for a charged particle without intrinsic magnetic moment(or to say ignoring spin-magnetic field interaction) in some potential $V(\vec{x})$, when ...
112 views

### “In-head” sound intensity with and without earplugs

When you bite something in two pieces, e.g. a piece of hard candy, you hear the sound through two sources: vibrations in the air, entering your ears from the outside and internal vibrations in your ...
124 views

### “backwards” Diffraction Grating with light source at maxima (1st, 2nd, nth order)?

How will a light source with a specific $\lambda$ positioned right at the nth order maximum pointing towards a diffraction grating be affected? Will it come out "directed"?
477 views

### Time Dilation Effects from simply being on a spinning planet orbiting a star in a rotating galaxy in an expanding universe.

I am a layman, so take this with a grain of salt. I saw a TV show the other day which showed a Russian Cosmonaut who had spent more time in space than any other human. The relativistic effects of ...
303 views

### Energy-momentum tensor for dust

We all know that the energy-momentum tensor for dust is just $T^{\alpha\beta}=\rho_0v^\alpha v^\beta,$ where $\rho_0$ is the mass density in the dust's rest frame and $v^α$ is the dust's ...
98 views

### How do you know which atoms are in a specific piece of matter?

If you have a piece of matter in front of you, how can you know of which atoms it consists? And starting from nothing, how can I discover all the elements (or just a lot of them) of the periodic ...
46 views

### Status of time in a Universe at maximum entropy

In billions and billions (thanks Carl Sagan) of years I have heard that atoms will lose energy and their temperature will approach absolute zero and thus their entropy will approach a minimum level. ...
135 views

### A question about the Bosonization of the Thirring model

Is there a way or sense in which one can Bosonize this kind of a Lagrangian, $L = \bar{\psi}\gamma^\mu \partial _\mu \psi + f(x) \bar{\psi}\psi$ for $f(x)$ being some function on space-time. ...
658 views

### Two suns, one moon, and one planet?

I have a question about how would seasons and the moon cycle be affected in a system where one planet orbits Sun #1, and Sun #1 orbits a second sun. Online I found this description: "Type II: ...
54 views

### Expansion of ideal gas

Consider an ideal gas in a chamber (A), separated from another chamber (B) by a diaphragm, in the following two situations: (1) Instantaneously burst the diaphragm (2) Plug in an isentropic nozzle so ...
78 views

### Does $c = 0$ implies that the theory is “empty”?

I'm wondering if there is more than the empty theory (no local fields, identically vanishing stress energy tensor) that can have central charge $c$ equals to $0$? My intuition tells me no, the stress ...
191 views

### Three dimensional wave packets in momentum space

I am given the 3D wave packet: $$\psi(x,y,z)=N\,\exp\left(\frac{-(x^2+y^2+2z^2)}{2a^2}\right).$$ I was asked to find N (easy enough). Then I was asked the probability that we measure $z$ greater than ...
93 views

### Details in the derivation of the second law starting from the phase space volume

I had a question on one of the details of the derivation of the second law of thermodynamics starting from the phase space volume. I'll type out what I understand so far: Letting the Hamiltonian ...
84 views

### Is observation a component of the Lorentz transformation?

For a while I've been trying to write a simple geometric derivation of the Lorentz transformation, based only on the second postulate. Although I'm able to successfully derive the Lorentz ...
103 views

### Understanding Normal Force Change

I know this has been asked around, my question is a bit more specialized towards my personal problem. If I have an object the magnitude of the weight is usually equal to the normal force, right? I ...
259 views

### Principle of Superposition for driven oscillator

So I understand the the Superposition Principle states that all the forced oscillations, as determined by multiple external forces, are to be added up in order to get the entire solution. However, ...
92 views

### Why does snow seem to reflect red light best?

I've noticed that snow seems to reflect red light more than any other wavelength at night. It's seen in the sky, as well as the snow itself, both of which take on a reddish tint. Why exactly does it ...
147 views

### Is a magnetic field affected by the presence of air?

Does air affect a magnetic field's ability to attract ferromagnets? If a magnetic field and a ferromagnet were placed in a vacuum would there be a better performance?
230 views

### A conceptual question about Green's function's treatment of interaction

Here we have electron gas and some other stuff. We expand the Hamiltonian to the 1st order of one single harmonic oscillator's displacement $\vec{u}$. Its equilibrium position is at the origin. Then ...
224 views

### Use Equations 1 and 2 to eliminate $T$ and show the expression for $f$ is given by [closed]

I am not quite understanding what needs to be done but I am assuming that I must combine the two equations and get rid of the variable $T$ in order to make this equation of $f$ below: (Note:These ...
4k views

### Work done by isothermal expansion from two different viewpoints

Consider an adiabatic system as follows. It consists of a gas in a container and a piston. Initially, the system is at equilibrium and the gas inside it occupies a volume $V_i$ at a pressure $p_i$ ...
206 views

### Expression for maximum energy transfer to electron by fast moving charge

Suppose a charge $q = +Z e$ is moving along positive $+x$ direction with electron below $x-$axis and the charge is moving fast enough to consider electron at rest, then what is the maximum value of ...
86 views

### Transition from coordinate space to momentum space for SHO

I am given that the ground state of the SHO in position space is given as $$\langle q|\psi_0\rangle=\frac{1}{a^{\frac12}\pi^{\frac14}}e^{-q/4a^2}$$ Where a is a constant with units of length. I am ...
86 views

### Ensuring globally hyperbolic geodesically-complete spacetimes

Let's say we have an incomplete spacetime A that is globally hyperbolic, does there necessary exist a globally hyperbolic completion? My guess is no, in which case what further restrictions can be ...
1k views

### Faraday rotation effect in circularly polarized waves?

We all know farady effect is observed in linearly polarized wave when it passes through a dielectric medium and magnetic field is along the direction of propagation. Is this phenomenon observable in ...
2k views

### Capacitors in series: Why is the equivalent charge the same as the individual charges

Consider two parallel-plate capacitors $C_1, C_2$ in series. For the "equivalent" circuit, clearly $$Q_{equiv} = C_{equiv}V$$ should hold, where V is the total voltage drop between input and ...
75 views

### 1-dimensional Ring geometry - Group of Translations

I considered a Ring-like one dimensional geometry. In this, if we fix an origin (at some point on the circumference), we can think of set of all displacements along the circumference to form a vector ...
182 views

### FQH Edge Theory as decoupled chiral bosons

The action describing the edge theory of the Fractional Quantum Hall effect is given by S = \frac{1}{4\pi} \int \mathrm{d}x \ \mathrm{d}t \left[ K_{IJ} \ \partial_{t}\phi_{RI} ...
87 views

### Do black holes have a characteristic size?

First off, I know that a black hole can theoretically exist at any size, and I know about the Schwarzschild radius, etc. Snowflakes could also exit at just about any size, and they of course vary ...
246 views

### A moving charge in an uniform magnetic field

An electron is in a region where there is an uniform magnetic field created by a large disc-shaped magnet. As is well known, if the electron is moving with velocity $\vec v$ parallel to the flat ...
122 views

### How to find the equillibrium points using Jacobian and Hessian?

Given that I have Jacobian and Hessian matrices of three particles interacting with each other in a harmonic trap through Coulomb's law in a 2D plane, how do I find the equilibrium points of them (I ...
227 views

### What does quantum phenomena exist as prior to observation?

It's been said that according to the Schrodinger equation, independent of observation, particles exist in a state of a wave function, which is a series of potentialities rather than actual objects. ...
243 views

### Electromagnetic Waves

We all know that light is an electro magnetic wave. but is electricity a EM wave? If it is then why light does not requires a medium to travel and why on the other side electricity needs a conductor ( ...
203 views

### Phonon-phonon interaction

I have been told that phonon-phonon Interaction is an anharmonic effect so only arises if terms of third and higher order in the displacement of the ions the Hamiltonian for the nuclii is taken into ...
157 views

### Everyday physics book reference

A few years ago I remember browsing a pair of books that had a list of challenge-like questions about everyday physics, such as why do we deep fry hamburgers, how air conditioning works, etc. They ...
I've been struggling with a detail in Second Quantization which I really need to clear out of my head. If I expand the S-matrix of a theory with an interaction Hamiltonian $H_I(x)$ then I have  S ...