# All Questions

581 views

### How can photons interact with anything?

I read photons do not age because they move at the speed of light. So when a photon interacts with my eyes, aren't they apart in space-time by the difference of the time in the frame of reference of ...
645 views

### Some conceptual questions on the renormalization group

I recently followed courses on QFT and the subject of renormalization was discussed in some detail, largely following Peskin and Schroeder's book. However, the chapter on the renomalization group is ...
725 views

### Direction of X-rays from x-ray tube

Typically anode of X-ray tube is at angle of ~45 degrees. Many images show that emitted X-rays are mostly perpendicular to electron direction. Is that correct? I had an impression that x-rays will ...
660 views

### Three integrals in Peskin's Textbook

Peskin's QFT textbook 1.page 14 $$\int_0 ^\infty \mathrm{d}p\ p \sin px \ e^{-it\sqrt{p^2 +m^2}}$$ when $x^2\gg t^2$, how do I apply the method of stationary phase to get the book's answer. ...
151 views

### How symmetry is related to the degeneracy?

I have several questions about symmetry in quantum mechanics. It is often said that the degeneracy is the dimension of irreducible representation. I can understand that if the Hamiltonian has a ...
1k views

### Simultaneous Charging and Discharging Capacitor

sorry if I sound little noobish. Though I have a fairly good understanding of physics, I sometimes don't understand the electrical aspects. Say there is a capacitor. This capacitor is expected to act ...
50 views

### Practical Resonance Derivation?

To my understanding, practical resonance occurs when the amplitude is at a maximum. Is this correct? Also I have looked all over for a derivation of the formula for angular frequency of practical ...
64 views

### Metric to describe an expanding spacetime from coordinates reflecting the perspective of a local observer

The FLRW metric describes the metric expansion of spacetime from the perspective of comoving coordinates. Given the way this metric is usually formulated, comoving distances stay constant, and the ...
125 views

### Is there any connection between “Lagrangian and Eulerian formalism of fluid” and “Heisenberg and Shrodinger picture”

Is there any connection between "Lagrangian and Eulerian formalism of fluid" and "Heisenberg and Shrodinger picture of Quantum mechanics"? Thanks!
126 views

### Does nonlocal theory violate causality?

Let's talk about two kinds of nonlocal theories. The first one frequently derives from integrating out part of the degrees of freedom to obtain a kind of effective theory. Probably, we get an integral ...
29 views

### Good First year physics lecture notes [duplicate]

My course textbook is Halliday fundamental of physics, this book is huge and since each week, they cover a lot of material in lectures (something about 6 chapters of the textbook), I find it hard to ...
142 views

### Does the transmission axis matter for sending polarized light through polarized glass?

If I have polarized light and I send through only one polarized glass plane, does the transmission axis matter, or will the intensity be halved no matter what.
99 views

### Could a super conductor actually be used to repel gravity? [duplicate]

I've always been interested in anti-gravity and how you could do it. I know that it would make space travel easier because less fuel would be required, but is it possible?
82 views

### Correct formula to express the potential generated by a single layer charge distribution

Assume that the closed surface $S$ encircles a volume $V$, and that a surface charge with density $\sigma$ ("single layer") is distributed over $S$. My question regards the electrostatic potential ...
502 views

### Thought experiment using quantum entanglement in position and its effects

Consider we have two atoms $a$ and $b$. They are entangled with each other in position and momentum, with some wavefuction describing them in position space that is $\Psi(x_a, x_b)$. This ...
599 views

### Biot-Savart Law from linear to volume current distribution

Biot-Savart law for a linear current distribution is: $\displaystyle \vec{B}=\frac{\mu I}{4\pi}\int\frac{\vec{dl}\times \vec{r}}{r^{3}}$. In the book that my professor uses says that if we have ...
43 views

### When is the speed specified for an object experiencing an exponential force?

So this is the question given in my text book: A particle of mass m is at rest at the origin at time $t = 0$. It is subjected to a force $F (t) = F_0e^{–bt}$ in the $x$ direction. Its speed ...
77 views

### Solving the 1-d time-independent Schroedinger's equation with an infinite boundary

In my introductory modern physics class we have examined time-independent solutions to the Schrödinger equation in 1 dimension. We looked at a few cases without finite boundary, e.g., free particles ...
118 views

### Why is $D$ a $2$-form and $E$ a $1$-form?

Usually in electrostatics we start by introducing the vector field $\mathbf{E}$ representing the electric field due to some charge distribution. Later when we study fields in materials we consider the ...
196 views

### What forces are involved in this situation?

A old massless rope of 12 meters attached to a ceiling can sustain a maximum tension force of 1200N before breaking. An 85 kg person climbs up the rope. What is the minimum possible time in which ...
529 views

### If electromagnetic waves have magnetic fields, why beam of flashlight is not disrupted by a Magnet?

Wikipedia article about Electromagnetic Radiation says "As an electromagnetic wave, it has both electric and magnetic field components". And this discussion also confirms Light is EM wave. Since we ...
438 views

### Fermi wavelength of graphene

Does anybody know the Fermi wavelength of graphene? I searched the Internet for a while without success. I found, by inspection with the Fourier transform of an S.T.M. image  3.84e^{-10} \mathrm{m}. ...
410 views

### Sudden Approximation for Beta Decay of Tritium Atom

I am working out this problem right now, and I'm confused by the answers I'm getting. Problem: A tritium nucleus (Z = 1) in a tritium atom undergoes beta decay, i.e., a neutron in the nucleus emits an ...
195 views

### Speed of light that is traveling away from the observer

The second postulate of Special Relativity states: The speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of their motion relative to the source. Now imagine the observer ...
796 views

### Deriving group velocity formula

A formula for the group velocity of waves is: $u=k*dv/dk + v$ But then, since $k=2π/λ$, this equation can be rewritten as: $u=v-dv/dλ*λ$ But how? My attempt: $k*dv/dk$ = $((2π/λ)*dv/d(2π/λ)$ ...
249 views

### SU(N) Yang-Mills $gg \to ggg$ scattering at tree level

When talking about the spinor-helicity formalism in his new textbook on quantum field theory, Matthew D. Schwartz claims as a highly nontrivial example, it is quite easy to use the Parke-Taylor ...
904 views

### Have I calculated the air flow of this fan correctly?

To calculate air flow capacity of a fan in cubic feet per minute (cfm): multiply the average air speed you measured in feet/minute (fpm) by the area of the fan face in square feet. (Area of circle =þ ...
875 views

### Does the Higgs field really explain mass or just reformulate it? What about charge?

The mass of a particle used to be considered a fundamental and intrinsic property of the particle; on the same level as other properties such as charge, spin, chirality/helicity. Due to the Higgs ...
226 views

### Can relativistic momentum (photons) be used as propulsion for 'free' after the initial generation?

In discussing this question about propelling a spacecraft with photons and their relativistic momentum, the author asked that I restate my comment as another question. If photons can really be used ...
193 views

### Definition of a spinor and applications to GR

I understand the construction of the Clifford algebra $C(r,s)$ and in turn the corresponding $Pin$ and $Spin$ groups. I would like first to clarify that $Spin(r,s)^e$ is the universal covering group ...
297 views

### Explicit supersymmetry breaking fermion mass terms

I hope you can clear up my following confusions. In Girardello's and Grisaru's paper (Nuclear Physics B, 194, 65 (1982)) where they analysed the most general soft explicit supersymmetry breaking ...
80 views

### The angle to shoot moving object

I am obliged to count very simple problem (at least it seemed that it is simple, I hope it isn't to simple for this site). So i got observer who is standing $H$ below the object. The object is fired ...
362 views

### If nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, how can there be parts of the universe we can't see? [duplicate]

Assuming we originated from a single infinitely dense point in space time in the big bang, how can there be parts of the universe that we can't see as the light has not reached us yet, if nothing can ...
41 views

### Differentiate wave speed, don't understand

The speed $v$ of some wave is $ω/k$ and I want to differentiate this with respect to $k$. Apparently this equals: $dv/dk = d(ω/k)/dk-ω/k^2$ But I don't understand why. Isn't this just saying "the ...
425 views

### Is every electromagnetic radiation considered “light”?

Somebody mentioned on Freenode chatroom for physics that All Electromagnetic Radiation are delivered in form of Photons not just light. Is it true? Does that mean if we get a THF electrical ...
161 views

### What is the intepretation of the electromagnetic tensor?

Let $A$ be the four-potential, then we know that we can form the electromagnetic tensor as $F=dA$. This is usually done as a way to have a better writing of Maxwell's equations. So, to simplify the ...
68 views

### Free fall from space [duplicate]

If you leave a ball weighing 10 kg at a height of 500 km above sea level (neglecting air friction). How can calculate how long the ball hits the ground and what will be its speed? I know that: On ...
315 views

### What makes different metals conduct better?

If a metal is a Fermi sea, what makes different metals better conductors? Clearly, one valance electron dominates. All things being equal, I would have assumed that the bigger atoms, with more ...
306 views

### Renormalizing composite operators

Consider the QED Lagrangian, {\cal L} = \bar{\psi} ^{(0)} ( i \partial_\mu \gamma^\mu - m ) \psi ^{(0)} - e A _\mu ^{(0)} \bar{\psi} ^{(0)} \gamma ^\mu \psi ^{(0)} - \frac{1}{4} ...
697 views

### Spin-statistics theorem proof details

Recently I have read one book where there was some incomprehensible proof of the Pauli's spin-statistics theorem. I want to ask about a few details of the proof. First, the author derives ...
49 views

### Atmospheric heating and the reduction in viscosity

The oceans are becoming less viscous as they are heated. I'd imagine a similar effect is likely occurring in the atmosphere as well. What, if any, effect would this reduction of viscosity have on ...
165 views

### Many times speed of light [duplicate]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/24/theory-of-everything-big-bang-discovery_n_5019126.html What does "many times speed of light" really mean in this context? For a layman it's easy to draw wrong ...
109 views

### What is the cheapest way to land a grain of sand on the moon? [closed]

I have a payload that is the size and density of a grain of sand. I want to land it intact on the moon, but I am not particular about location beyond that. What is the least expensive way to get it ...
78 views

### Could the phase factor $i$ be replaced by “matrix representation” totally in quantum mechanics? [duplicate]

It seems that $i$ plays an important role in quantum mechanics (Q.M.). On the other hand, linear algebra plays such an important role in Q.M. too. So would linear algebra, such as a matrix be able to ...
232 views

### Electricity Flow and Ground Wire

Pre-face: My step-father and I were turning the heat down on the water heater. He demonstrated that touching the ground wire doesn't shock you. My understanding is that the ground wire doesn't have ...
81 views

### Electromagnetic force interaction

As far as I know, the electromagnetic force only interacts on particles with electrical charge, but I was told that the electromagnetic force was involved in the following reaction: ...
152 views

I know I have posted this question before some time ago. But no one could help so I decided to put my problem in another background. The Schrödinger equation of a free scalar field is given by ...
590 views

### What's this about kinetic energy increasing with the fifth power of length?

I don't quite understand this quote from Stephen J. Gould's Ever since Darwin, where he talks about the compensating physical characteristics of organisms for their size. Other essential features ...