# All Questions

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### Why is the electric field highest in regions of highest resistance?

I know Kirchhoff's law and that current must be constant. But what exactly is the phenomenon, from first principles, that causes the electric field to be stronger in a region with lower carrier ...
38 views

### Rigorous definition of superselection sector/quasiparticle type in anyon systems

The systems I have in mind are for example Kitaev's toric code model (arXiv:quant-ph/9707021) and Kitaev's honeycomb model (arXiv:cond-mat/0506438). What I'm looking for is a mathematically rigorous ...
8k views

### Why is quantum entanglement considered to be an active link between particles?

From everything I've read about quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement phenomena, it's not obvious to me why quantum entanglement is considered to be an active link. That is, it's stated every ...
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### Black Body Golf Balls

The surface of a golf ball has about 35% more surface area (than a similar sphere) due to its dimples. So my question is simple, given identical radius, ideal black body material, and temperature: ...
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### Is there a definite boundary between a powder and a fluid?

Given a powder of solid substance what will happen if we make the granules smaller and smaller mechanically? Will this eventually make a liquid or gas from the powder? Can there be gaseous substanse ...
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### I would like to know what variables to consider when I experiment with pouring from bottles and the “glug” effect?

I am a middle school science teacher and want to model a science fair project for my students. Specifically I want to investigate using a vent in the top of the handle of a gallon milk jug to ...
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### Basic concepts on Electricity

How do electrons move? I mean really do they move? i read that they move in circular shells AROUND THE NUCLEUS... How can they move in the conductor? I have read that there are valent electrons that ...
552 views

### Physics of how the cochlea isolates frequencies along its length?

Can anyone explain the separation of frequencies along the basilar membrane of the cochlea please? (equations would be nice) I understand it being related to the resistance caused by fluid in the ...
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### What would happen to the human body if we went almost at the speed of light? [duplicate]

If we were to travel almost at $299\,792\,458~m/s$, or the speed of light, what would happen to the human body? Would the human body stay the same or would there be consequences that would harm the ...
2 views

### Mach-Zehnder interferometry wave functions

Consider the set up below: I have read that in the apparatus the wavefunction is given by: $$|\psi \rangle=e^{i\theta}|c \rangle +i |b \rangle$$ where $\theta$ is the phase added by the phase ...
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### What force needs to be applied to produce twice as much acceleration as already present in a body?

Let the current body of mass m be moving with acceleration a, produced by applying F = ma. ...
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### Incoherent Intermediate Scattering Function from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

I want to calculate the incoherent intermediate scattering function (ISF) using the self-part of the van Hove function. When I plot the ISF as a function of time, should I consider the modulus of the ...
15 views

### Is there any other momentum besides the Poynting momentum stored in an electromagnetic field?

I am having some conceptual difficulties with energy and momentum stored in the EM field. The force density at a point is $\rho E + j\times B$ Because of conservation of momentum, and because the ...
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### Is it possible to eliminate Van der Waals interactions?

I came to know that the friction force actually depends on the surface contact area due to weak interactions (adhesion due to Van der Waals forces) between the atoms of both materials increasing in ...
184 views

### Is the universe 5 dimensional space-time or 4?

we've been told that in General Relativity (GR), matter tells space how to curve and space tells matter how to move. But my question is, if 3 dimensional space was curved by matter then it should be ...
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### Calculating curvature of spacetime when energy is present

I am only about half-way of studying SR and GR and I am not yet familiar with a formula to calculate the curvature of spacetime when energy is present. To be more specific, I want to calculate ...
41 views

### What about a surface determines its color?

Light falls on a surface. Some wavelengths get absorbed. The other are reflected. The reflected ones are the colors that we perceive to be of the surface. What is the property that determines, what ...
104 views

### How to explain space-time curvature in two minutes?

How would you explain what is the curvature of space-time in a short period of time like 2 minutes to non experience people?
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### Motion in oscillating field: expanding in powers of $\xi$

I'm reading an excerpt from Landau/Lifschitz's Mechanics book about motion in oscillating fields. Two equations for the motion of a particle with mass $m$ are set out: m\ddot{x} = ...
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### Electrostatics Problem - A non-conducting cylinder

A nonconducting cylinder of radius 1.20 meters and length 2.00 meters carries a charge of 50 micro-coulombs uniformly distributed throughout the cylinder.Find the electric field on the cylinder axis ...
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### What is the significance of Planck charge?

It seems for me that Planck units are somehow connected to limits where our current knowledge breaks down because of (quantum) gravitational effects. Please correct me if I'm wrong. For example ...
471 views

### Mirror problem of radiation pressure

If two perfect mirrors are placed facing one another and they are in proximity, and photons (don't ask me how) are traveling between them and toward one of them, what is to keep the radiation pressure ...
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### How to go from Lorentz gauge to Coulomb gauge?

I want to know that if I find some solution, say a polarization vector in Lorenz gauge. Now I want to go to Coulomb gauge. There must be a transformation that links both the gauges. How would I find ...
27 views

### Why does the temperature of a gas inside a moving container not increase with velocity?

A rectangular (simplified) container with rigid surfaces, has a certain mass of ideal gas within it, and it accelerates in free space, undergoing rectilinear motion. There are no dissipative ...
215 views

### Hearing sound around corners

I've been taught that diffraction is the reason why we can hear around corners, since the wavelength of sound is approximately 10 cm (smaller than a door or a window). I wonder how can this be ...
61 views

### Why is a beam reach the fastest point of sail on modern sailboats?

I've heard that a beam reach (perpendicular to the wind) is the fastest point of sail on modern sailboats, but I haven't heard a satisfying explanation of the physics behind the claim. Triangular ...
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### Measured voltage on coil

I have a simple circuit of coil with inductance L $$u_c(t)= -L\frac{di}{dt}$$ and AC source with output voltage $u_s$ What is actually measured by the voltmeter ($u_c$, $u_s$ or $u_s - u_c$)? If ...
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### Bifurcate Killing Horizon of the Ads-Schwarzschild solution

I need your help. I'm considering the AdS-Schwarzschild solution: $ds^2=V(r)dt^2 + \frac{1}{V(r)}dr^2+r^2dΩ^2$ where $V(r)=1-\frac{2m}{r}+\frac{r^2}{l^2}$ with $m$ the mass of the black hole and $l$ ...
751 views

### How is the path integral for light explained, or how does it arise?

In a Phys.SE question titled How are classical optics phenomena explained in QED (Snell's law)? Marek talked about the probability amplitude for photons of a given path. He said that it was ...
208 views

### Can quantum entanglement be simulated on a digital computer to any degree of precision?

First principles modelling of physical phenomena has been very successful in physics. The largest limitation is perhaps the fact that many QM problems are NP hard so we would need really powerful ...
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### What is the reason we originally and still use the non-SI unit, the Jansky?

The Jansky is the unit for spectral flux density. It is defined as $$1 {\rm \ Jy} = 10^{-26} {\rm W \ m^{-2} \ Hz^{-1}}$$ in terms of Watts per square meter per Hertz. I've never quite understood ...
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### How to compute scattering amplitude $\gamma\pi^+\to\pi^+\pi^0$

I wish to find the amplitude for process $\gamma\pi^+\to\pi^+\pi^0$ at low energies. I am familiar with the basic concepts and techniques of QFT but have never dealt with the scattering processes ...
770 views

### Calculating Reynolds number for a viscous droplet

I'm trying to develop a very basic scaling law/unit analysis for viscous droplet formation, and I'd like to get some rough numerical values of the Reynolds number to play with. To be specific, I'm ...
42 views

### Addition of states of two different Hilbert spaces

I am having difficulty in understanding the following. Let us say, I have two mutually exclusive Hilbert spaces $H_1$ and $H_2$. Let these have the basis states $\lbrace|\psi_1\rangle\rbrace$ and ...
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### Do photons have/contribute to mass?

Do electrons gain mass by absorbing photons during excitation and releasing them by returning to the ground state? Do photons have mass in the form of energy by $E=mc^2$?
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### How Uncertainty Principle, Vacumm fluctuations and Energy Conservation coexist in QFT?

Recently I had a debate about the uncertainty principle in QFT that made me even more confused.. Because we use Furrier transforms in QFT we should have an analogue to the usual Heisenberg ...
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### How 'rare' is no-slipping?

I have come across a lot of questions that say something like: A ball rolls down a hill without slipping... But I have done the maths and found that a ball would only 'not slip' if the friction ...
634 views

### How exactly does a solar flare cause a power line surge?

There are occasional large scale electrical blackouts caused by solar flares. Quebec Solar Flare Blackout My question is: what affects the severity of the problem? It obviously depends on the ...
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### Why does the topological entropy scale with $\log(L)$ in 1D?

Why, in one dimension, does the topological entropy scale with the size of system as $S \sim \ln L$, while in a 2D system it scales with $S \sim L$? Why does dimensionality play such an important role ...
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### Cosmological Constant on the LHS of Einstein's Field Equation

The cosmological constant seems to be normally described as an energy (repulsive force, Dark Energy) of Space-Time. I was just wondering, if we were to interpret the cosmological constant as being ...