# All Questions

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### Why do some liquid metals have anomalously-high surface tension/heat of vaporization ratios?

In a didactic article, Victor Weisskopf estimated the size of molecules in a liquid from measurements of their surface tension and heat of vaporization. If atoms are exceedingly small, then only a ...
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### Have we managed to make a perfect vacuum?

Have we managed to make a device without any atom inside it on earth? I was reading about vacuum here, and I found in the examples part here that even on the best man made vacuum devices, there are ...
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### Relativity exposition from the “naïve” viewpoint

A naïve observational viewpoint doesn't automatically try to correct for signal delays. In other words, the time co-ordinate is retarded. For example: In popular expositions of relativity you'll ...
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### Order of phase transition: Which free energy to use?

I am unclear about the adjective "first" or "second" used in phase transitions. Take the liquid-gas transition for example. If we vary the volume of the system at constant T, at some point we will ...
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### CP-violation in weak and strong sectors

There is a possible CP-violating term in the strong sector of the standard model proportional to $\theta_\text{QCD}$. In the absence of this term, the strong interactions are CP-invariant. In the ...
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### Is the quantization of gravity necessary for a quantum theory of gravity?

The other day in my string theory class, I asked the professor why we wanted to quantize gravity, in the sense that we want to treat the metric on space-time as a quantum field, as opposed to, for ...
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### Chirality when moving around legs in Feynman diagrams

Assuming one has the following term in a Lagrangian: $$g (\overline{A_R} B_L)(\overline{C_R}D_L)$$ where A,B,C,D correspond to spin 1/2 Dirac particles and the subscripts $R$ and $L$ denote left- ...
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Currently, the world's fastest supercomputer runs at 17.59 Petaflops, which consumes 9 megawatts of electricity. A qubit-based quantum computer has the potential to operate much more quickly for some ...
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### Ways to create controlled small bubbles in water within plastic tubing

What is a practical way in an engineering or physics laboratory to create bubbles of a specified size in water within plastic tubing? The tubing is a few mm inner diameter. We'd like to make bubbles ...
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### Is a large system just a set of smaller systems?

All particles exhibit wave-particle duality. And I have a strange question. Why does a larger system, liken an atom that is just a set of smaller systems, itself exhibit wave-particle duality? In ...
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### Photosensitivity of Photodiodes, lower wavelength -> lower sensitivity?

I saw a diagram of the photosensitivity (Current per Power) of a photodiode. So there is this diagonal stating the 100% quantum efficiency. I wondered why the sensitivity for bluer light lower ...
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### Lamb-Chaplygin dipole

There is an interesting issue of hydrodynamics: whirlpools. I want to learn about the Lamb-Chaplygin dipole. Lamb-Chaplygin dipole corresponds to a steady solution of the two dimensional Euler ...
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### Problem of Landau, Lifshitz - Mechanics - Integration of the Equations of motion [closed]

I'm studying Landau, Lifshitz - Mechanics. Could someone help me with this problem ? =) Problem 2 (Page 27 3rd Edition) Determine the period of oscillation, as a function of the energy, when a ...
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### Exciton energy splitting in indirect semiconductor

Let's take an indirect bulk semiconductor and imagine the exciton that build up at the indirect gap. Since we have a bulk semiconductor we should find three p-like orbitals: $p_x,p_y,p_z$. Would their ...
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### Do scientists literally believe the Schröedinger's cat though experiment?

I've heard the Schrödinger's cat "paradox" (although there's nothing particularly paradoxical about it, just counterintuitive), but I've never been clear on whether or not it's meant to be taken with ...
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### What are the differences between indistinguishable and identical?

What is the difference between indistinguishable particles and identical particles?
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### Order of phase transitions

I got to read things like In case of a first order phase transition, the volume and temperature change in a discontinuous manner. However for phase transitions of higher order the change in ...
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### How do I correctly express the work required to put an object with positive buoyancy down into a certain depth (of water)?

It seems to me that I can express the work required to put an object under water in the same way that I express lifting an object up against gravity. I. e., in both cases I increase the potential ...
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### What does y with a line over it represent?

I've been asked to complete this chart and have never come across this symbol before, nor can I find anything about it on google: What does the y with the line over it represent? And also, does the ...