# All Questions

316 views

### What shape of track minimizes the time a ball takes between start and stop points of equal height?

I was at my son's high school "open house" and the physics teacher did a demo with two curtain rail tracks and two ball bearings. One track was straight and on a slight slope. The beginning and end ...
369 views

### What path would advanced spaceships take to move between planets? [closed]

Right now, space travel is all about carefully moving between orbits. If you want to go from Earth to Mars, you wait until the two planets are correctly aligned, and then place yourself into an ...
1k views

### Why water is not superfluid?

My question is in the title. I do not really understand why water is not a superfluid. Maybe I make a mistake but the fact that water is not suprfluid comes from the fact that the elementary ...
721 views

### What do you feel when crossing the event horizon?

I have heard the claim over and over that you won't feel anything when crossing the event horizon as the curvature is not very large. But the fundamental fact remains that information cannot pass ...
2k views

### Harold White's work on the Alcubierre warp drive

I've read a bit on Harold White's recent work. (A paper on Nasa's site) I haven't been able to find any comments by people claiming to know anything about the physics involved. Is this really serious? ...
118 views

### What star processes throw strange matter into space?

My understanding is that strange matter is stable in low pressures or vacuum, but correct me if this is wrong I'm wondering how likely is to find strange matter in empty space. What physical ...
2k views

### Does Nantenna (nano antenna) violates 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?

Does Nantenna (nano antenna) violates 2nd Law of Thermodynamics ? Nantennas absorb infrared heat and convert it in direct current. Quote from Wikipedia: He did not discuss whether or not this ...
265 views

### Length Contraction And Simultaneity

I wanted to derive length contraction from the Lorentz transformation, but I keep getting stuck on problems with simultaneity in my derivation. At some point, I came across Wikipedia's article on ...
280 views

### How did QED diverge from quantum mechanics mathematically?

We have either Heisenberg or Schrodinger picture of quantum mechanics world. So, how did quantum electrodynamics come from mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics? Also, QED seems to have ...
92 views

### possible values of quantity in matrix mechanics

Suppose that there is a quantity described by the matrix as the following: $M = \begin{bmatrix} 3 & 0 & -i \\ 0 & 1 & 0 \\ i & 0 &3\end{bmatrix}$ How we determine possible ...
213 views

### Task with three metal plates [closed]

There are three parallel metal plates. Two boundary plates are fixed and connected with a galvanic battery, maintained a constant potential difference $\Delta \varphi$. Middle plate was initially in ...
689 views

### Capacitance and Light Bulb And Dielectric Slab [closed]

An electric lamp having coil of negligible inductance connected in series with a capacitor and an AC source is glowing with certain brightness. How does the brightness of the lamp change on reducing ...
134 views

### Eigen modes in a room

In a rectangular room 10*8*5 how can the eigen modes belonging to octave and third octave bands centered at 50Hz be found ? I have the formula to calculate the number of modes but don't have the idea ...
613 views

### Quark compositions in $\pi^+$ to $\pi^0$ pion decay

Pions can undergo a rare beta-like decay into leptons: Pion beta decay (with probability of about $10^{−8}$) into a neutral pion plus an electron and electron antineutrino (or for positive ...
225 views

### Is Fractional quantum Hall effect proof that leptons are composite particles?

The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2D electrons shows precisely quantised plateaus at fractional values. Should this be considered ...
281 views

### Entanglement measure to classify topological ordered states

I know long-range entanglement is the essence of nontrivial topological ordered states. (Trivial refers to short range entangled and nontrivial refers to long range.) So, entanglement measure at large ...
1k views

### Is Heisenberg's matrix mechanics or Schrödinger's wave mechanics more preferred?

Which quantum mechanics formulation is popular: Schrödinger's wave mechanics or Heisenberg's matrix mechanics? I find this extremely confusing: Some post-quantum mechanics textbooks seem to prefer ...
628 views

### Different colors in LED/LCD display when viewed from different angle?

I want to know why different colours appear when viewed with a different angle. Can anyone tell me why?
290 views

### Is it possible to hear the past?

From this Stack Exchange Physics Post, I am certain that it is possible to view the past. But then this interesting question came to me. Is it possible to hear the past? Ok, you might say, "Well, ...
3k views

### Magnetic field lines can be entirely confined within the core of a toroid, but not within a straight solenoid. Why?

I need a full explantation for this concept. Magnetic field lines can be entirely confined within the core of a toroid, but not within a straight solenoid.
111 views

### Difference between using displacement and current configuration as unknown?

We could use either the current configuration $x$ or the displacement $u$ as unknown while solving for the deformation, for example, of a solid object. I want to know what's the difference between ...
950 views

### Maxim Raykin's “solution to the measurement problem” using infinitely many derivatives

Recently I was made aware of the following arXiv preprint by Maxim Raykin: Analytical Quantum Dynamics in Infinite Phase Space. As far as I understand it, Raykin's idea is to reinterpret quantum ...
129 views

### Folded and/or compacted dimensions in M-theory?

I've on many occasions that there are various numbers of 'extra' dimensions above the 4th. However, I've heard that they are 'compacted' or 'folded' tightly and unimaginably small. Now, as I ...
348 views

### When differential equation like Schrodinger is separable in some coordinate system?

When differential equation like Schrodinger is separable in some coordinate system? What needs to satisfy the potential ?
93 views

### Didactics question (“teams and times”) [closed]

In sports it is commonplace to distinguish a "team" (as characterized by the players who took part in a match, playing together against another team), from the "score" (such as the final score of ...
121 views

### Could tidal effects make matter hot enough for nuclear fusion?

There was a recent question about cosmological firewalls. Putting aside questions of entanglement and information and looking at the problem from a pure mechanical viewpoint, we know that although ...
222 views

### Accelerating expansion of the universe and cyclic model

So I've heard that recent observations indicated that the rate of expansion of the universe is accelerating. Does this indicate that the universe can NOT be cyclical, with an infinite series of big ...
177 views

### How can we claim something violates some physical law, when so many physical laws have been postulated?

For example, Einstein postulated that the speed of light, c, is constant in all inertial frames of reference. Bohr postulated that electrons go around the atom in ...
445 views

### Can anyone analyze this perpetual machine that a Norwegian built?

Take a look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlx2PgESXhs It shows a machine that a Norwegian artist built. It seemingly keeps going forever. They filmed it over 3 days and it kept going ...
321 views

### Killing vectors for SO(3) (rotational) symmetry

I am reading a paper$^1$ by Manton and Gibbons on the dynamics of BPS monopoles. In this, they write the Atiyah-Hitchin metric for a two-monopole system. The first part is for the one monopole moduli ...
670 views

### ratio between work and heat [closed]

I am really stuck on a problem in my textbook: Water is heated in an open pan where the air pressure is one atmosphere. The water remains a liquid, which expands by a small amount as it is heated. ...
92 views

### Explanation for self-rupture glass is needed

I witnessed a phenomenon that I couldn't conclude its cause. Please bear with me for the length of the recall, for I merely want to include any details that might help us to investigate. I had a ...
3k views

### Walter Lewin Lectures in HD [closed]

I like the lectures by Walter Lewin 8.0x. However the quality of the videos is pretty bad. Is there any way (DVD, web,...) to get the lecture videos in a good quality, best in HD?
171 views

### what to use for mass in a 2D FEM simulation

I am trying to find the energy of a wave travelling through a solid material in a 2D Finite Element Method (FEM) - Simulation. As a general approach I would try to use $E_{kin}=\frac{1}{2}mv^2$ at ...
3k views

### What happens when we cut objects?

What is the role of the molecular bonds in the process of cutting something? What is the role of the Pauli exclusion principle, responsible for the "hardness" of matter? Moreover, is all the energy ...
903 views

### Conservation Laws and Symmetries

Usually, in Quantum Mechanics, an observable is an operator on the space of the possible quantum states (labelled as $|\psi\rangle$). If this quantity is conserved, in the meaning that the associated ...
485 views

### Matrix mechanics for those with wave mechanics background

Just curious: Is there any book or resource that teaches matrix mechanics (quantum mechanics) only without wave mechanics stuff - meaning that the book assumes wave mechanics background.
458 views

### Cramer's rule, Origin of Quarks Fractional electric charge? [closed]

In linear algebra, Cramer's rule is an explicit formula for the solution of a system of linear equations with as many equations as unknowns. 2u+1d=1 1u+2d=0 $$a_1d+b_1u=c_1$$ $$a_2d+b_2u=c_2$$ ...
441 views

### Pion Decay and Fractional electric Charge disappeared, why?

Since the charged pions decay into two particles, a muon and a muon neutrino Fractional electric Charge disappeared, why? The decay proceeds by the weak interaction $W^{+}$ and can be visualized in ...
299 views

### How 'Faster Than Light' Neutrino Was Product of Loose Cable at CERN?

A "faster than light" neutrino discovery was actually the result of a loose cable. A fiber-optic cable in a GPS receiver at the European Center for Particle Physics ( CERN) near Geneva Can someone ...
2k views

### What are cosmological “firewalls”?

Reading the funny title of this talk, Black Holes and Firewalls, just made me LOL because I have no idea what it is about but a lively imagination :-P (Sorry Raphael Bousso but the title is just too ...
254 views

### Interaction between a Pair of Particles

We consider a particle, A receiving energy from a second one,particle B in a one dimensional collision. $$E^2=p^2+m_0^2$$ $$EdE=pdp$$ For particle A: $$E_AdE_A=p_Adp_A{\;\;\;\;\;\;}(1)$$ For ...
1k views

### Could the fractional model of Quarks electric charge turn out to be false? [closed]

The delta baryons (also called delta resonances) are a family of subatomic hadron particles which have the symbols $\Delta^{++}$, $\Delta^{+}$, $\Delta^{0}$, and $\Delta^{−}$ and electric charges +2, ...
1k views

### Deriving the action and the Lagrangian for a free point particle in Special Relativity

My question relates to Landau & Lifshitz, Classical Theory of Field, Chapter 2: Relativistic Mechanics, Paragraph 8: The principle of least action. As stated there, to determine the action ...
343 views

### Connection between first and second quantization

This is my question: In a book on many body quantum theory I came across equality between antisymmetrized many-particle state vector which, as you know, includes sum over permutations of product ...
5k views

### Will two magnets lose magnetism if they stick to each other for infinitely long time?

Here we have two magnets and they are sticking to each other. What I've learned that could possibly explain it is one magnet holds positive charge and the other one holds negative. But when the ...
555 views

### Is there a way to save electricity from lightning? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Can the lightning be captured and used as power source? Each lightning contains several kilo volts of electricity. Saving them could be a boon to soaring need of it. Is ...
709 views

### simple explanation of chiral anomaly?

Can somebody provide a fairly brief explanation of what the chiral anomaly is? I have been unable to find a concise reference for this. I know QFT at the P&S level so don't be afraid to use math.