# All Questions

3k views

### Decibel level addition of multiple noise sources

If I have four computer fans of which each is said to run at 46 dB, and they run close to each other, how loud is the whole system? I somehow recall from my physics course that 10 decibel ...
253 views

### interaction at a distance: how it works

In classical physics, I know the forces due to gravity and electrostatics. I know a lot of work has been done, but don't know the status. Is there a generally accepted theory of how the force is ...
354 views

### Layman explanation for superconductivity?

I'm interested in reading an explanation of superconductivity, but though I have an undergraduate degree in engineering, I'm not sure I'm up to reading a detailed mathematical treatment of the theory. ...
5k views

### How does electricity propagate in a conductor?

On a systems level, I understand that as electrons are pushed into a wire, there is a net field and a net electron velocity. And I've read that the net electron drift is slow. But electricity ...
344 views

### Interaction of matter with EM fields

For the interaction between electromagnetic fields and matter, when do we have to include quantization of the EM field and when we can ignore it? when do we have to include quantization of atomic ...
526 views

### Cusp anomalous dimension in QCD

What is the "cusp anomalous dimension", starting from the basics? I came across this term while reading some QCD papers.
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### Is the number of independent constants of a system equal to the number of degree of freedom of it?

Maybe the question is not very clear myself since I am not a physics major.But can you help me make this question clearer and then give me some comments on it? I got that this holds in gravitional ...
403 views

### how does phase-shifting principle in interferometry work?

I have been using the coherence scanning interferometry (or also known as white light scanner), where it collects images containing the fringes. The system is able to produce the depth profile for one ...
113 views

### Optimality of the CHSH strategy

The maximum achievable probability of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt game is $\cos^2(\pi/8)\approx85.355\%,$ which can be proved with Tsirelson's inequality. But I don't imagine that this remained ...
745 views

### Why regularization?

In quantum field theory when dealing with divergent integrals, particularly in calculating corrections to scattering amplitudes, what is often done to render the integrals convergent is to add a ...
841 views

### FPS to MKS usage issues

I'm currently taking a high school physics class and we're doing friction problems now. I've been doing the ones that use MKS perfectly well, but when the problems start to use the FPS system, I'm ...
91 views

### What videos should everyone watch?

Similar to this cstheory question "What videos should everyone watch?" What conferences, workshops or lectures have recordings that researchers in theoretical physics should watch?
2k views

### Physical laws prior the big bang (quantum fluctuations)

A theory among scientists says that quantum fluctuations caused the big bang and created the universe. This seems plausible to me. What I can't grasp yet is how a quantum fluctuation can even start ...
246 views

### Modeling galactic colonization

I found a really cool sounding order-of-magnitude modeling question but am a bit at a loss on how to approach this: The Milky Way contains 100 billion stars and has a radius of 250,000 light ...
188 views

### What type of symmetry specifies in presence of what each not-charged particle (for example, neutrino) should have an antiparticle?

I think that charging symmetry assumes antiparticle presence, which has an opposite charge sign . And what symmetry assumes existence of an antiparticle at a neutral particle
116 views

### Simple question on the foundations of spin foam formalism

To make it simple, take the spin foam formalism of ($SU(2)$) 3D gravity. My question is about the choice of the data that will replace the (smoothly defined) fields $e$ (the triad) and $\omega$ (the ...
6k views

### laser spectral width vs. linewidth

I have been racking my brains over the differences between laser spectral width and something called the linewidth. The linewidth was written about in detail by Henry in 1982. The spectral width is ...
816 views

### Decay from excited state to ground state

People frequently speak about an atomic system decaying from an excited state to the ground state. However, both the ground states and the excited states are defined as eigenstates of the Hamiltonian ...
### What “I” should use in Rotational Energy formula $(I \omega^2)/2$
$\text{Rotational Energy} = \frac{1}{2} I \omega^2$. What $I$ should be used? $I$ as a inertia tensor matrix = stepRotation * inverse moment of inertia * inverse stepRotation; Or I as moment of ...