All Questions

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Do photons actually generate a slight kinetic force?

My question is even though photons have no (rest) mass, do they emit a external force due to EM radiation causing electrons to be excited and jump to higher energy shells which electrons have mass ...
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Static Friction in Free Body Diagram (FBD) of Car parked on Incline

I'm working on a sample problem and it asks on how steep of an incline can a car park? From what I learned the friction is in the opposite direction if there was motion in said friction-less ...
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Vacuum-ether and spacetime

In the past you could not give an explanation for various phenomena in which there was an action at a distance, like magnetism or gravity, that occurred in a vacuum; For this reason, ether was ...
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Explanation on the resulting forces of two positive point charges

Why will the resulting force lines of two positive point charges be like this: I would expect this:
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Why do fractal systems show power-law behavior?

I'm not sure I quite understand why systems with fractal systems show power-law behavior. My "gut" understanding is that the power-law index indicates the correct scaling factor for the system so that ...
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Relationship between a formal vector derivative and time evolution of an operator

I'm an undergraduate in physics, with all the lack of knowledge inherent in that. In two of my classes, my professors introduced two equations which look eerily similar. The first, from general ...
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Electric force on spherical surface

I have a doubt about electrical forces on surfaces, for instance, on the surface of a sphere. I'll explain my point: let's say we have some spherical surface of unit radius and there's one point ...
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Effective operator in four-fermion interaction

In one book, I have got the following lines which I found myself unable to understand what is effective operator? The paragraph is given below: The weak interaction describes nuclear beta decay, ...
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In the expansion of the scattered wave function, why do these two functions have the same index?

See Griffiths Quantum Mechanics, eq. 11.21. Evidently, $$\psi(r,\theta,\phi)=Ae^{ikz}+A\sum\limits_{l,m}^{\infty}C_{l,m}h_{l}(kr)Y_{l}^{m}(\theta,\phi).$$ But I don't see why the $l$th Hankel function ...
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Is time speeding up due to the expansion of space?

If we just look at our local galactic cluster, if all of the galaxies that are a part of it are moving away from each other, and so the overall 'density' of the strength of gravity in the cluster is ...
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Does altitude affect sound pitch?

Due to differences in air pressure, temperature, and other factors, the speed of sound varies with altitude on Earth. Does this affect the pitch of the sound in any meaningful way? For example, if I ...
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Is the path of stationary action unique? What are the physical implications of $L_{\dot{x}}=L_x$

Below, for any function $Q$ the notation $Q_x$ means $\frac{\partial Q}{\partial x}$, and $Q_{xx}$ means $\frac{\partial^2 Q}{\partial x^2}$. In physics, the trajectory of a particle is given by the ...
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Vertical Load Reactions On A Ramp

Hello, I'm working on a small hardware project. I have two load sensors located at distance $S_1$ ($x=0$) and $S_2$. Assuming we ignore the weight of the ramp ... What is the load on $S_1$ and ...
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Rolling bowling ball with slipping

If a bowling ball is moving with some initial velocity while slipping, how far will it move before it begins to roll once it experiences static friction? $\ddot{x} = \mu_{kf}g$ And there is also a ...
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How does scattering work?

Why is the sky blue? I was always taught in high school that light with wavelength $\lambda$ acts like a little particle that wiggles up and down through space (in proportion to its magnitude). I was ...
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Obtaining the conserved current of the Lagrangian making the parameter depending on $x$

To calculate the conserved current due to an internal symmetry of the system (expressed by the Lagrangian density) we can proceed as follows: if it is invariant under $\delta \phi = \alpha \phi$, ...
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Limitations of drag equation

The magnitude of the air resistance for objects with Reynolds numbers greater than 1000 is given by the formula: Why it does not hold for objects with lower Reynolds numbers? Can I use this ...
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Feynman Rules for massive vector boson interactions

I am stuck at the beginning of a problem where I am given an interaction term that modifies the regular QED Lagrangian. It involves the interaction between a photon field and a massive vector boson: ...