# All Questions

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### Figure out the force constant of a spring [on hold]

You are asked to design spring bumpers for the walls of a parking garage. A freely rolling 1200-kg var moving at 0.65m/s is to compress the spring no more than 0.090m before stopping. What should be ...
204 views

### Exact diagonalization to resolve ground state degeneracies

I am studying a perturbed Toric Code model that is not analytically solvable. On a torus the ground state degeneracy of the unperturbed model is 4. Once we turn on the perturbation there is a change ...
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### Why does Hamiltonian follow the property $H^*_{ij} = H_{ji}$?

I was reading Feynman's Lectures III's Hamiltonian Matrix. There I found this property of Hamiltonian Matrix: The Hamiltonian has one property that can be deduced right away, namely, that ...
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### Car Sliding Down a Frictionless Banked Curve

A car enters a frictionless banked curve with speed $v$. This speed happens to be too great to execute uniform circular motion at the angle $\theta$ the curve is banked at. What will the equations ...
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### Does “converge” mean intersecting and producing image when we are taking about convex lenses?

After reading the chapter on convex lens, I saw several places where "converge" is used. In the very beginning of the chapter, my book says "converging lenses bring light together". So I though ...
28 views

### What is the frequency of the color black?

Our eyes don't see light; they detect vibrations in the 400-800 THz range that we call color. Since our eyes can detect the color we call black, what is its frequency?
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### How is finite energy spread wholly in the infinite universe

We all know that energy is never lost, but it transforms into another form. Doesn't that mean that energy is not unlimited? I mean, why is it that way if it was infinite? However, if energy is spread ...
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### Accounting for the thermal excitation in the Richardson-Dushmann equation or the work function equation

When accounting for thermal excitation in a system that is not in thermal equilibrium, heat is constantly flowing through a material, should I account for the thermal excitation in the work function ...
25 views

### Concerning infinite energy and the speed of light

From Wikipedia: "Under the special theory of relativity, a particle (that has rest mass) with subluminal velocity needs infinite energy to accelerate to the speed of light, to accelerate beyond the ...
53 views

### Can sound waves be made to project 3-D shapes, like a reverse sonar? [on hold]

Can sound waves be manipulated to project 3-dimensional shapes or forms, like a reverse sonar?
30 views

### What is the smallest distance possible between two stars?

If two stars of any type were to form near each other, how closely can they form before something prevents them from being two distinct stars?
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### What exactly produces gravitational force? It just can't emerge out of no where depending on mass, distance etc

I tried getting the answer from the internet but it says that it is still a mystery.
211 views

### In a positively biased PN junction, where do the injection carriers come from?

I am not quite understand i-v character of PN-junction diode. Here is the model in textbook. The PN junction diode can be divided into three regions. They are One depletion region near the PN ...
29 views

### Drag force - dimensional analysis

I have tried the following example from the link: MIT OCW 8.012 PS1 It is about dimensional analysis. Derive an expression for the drag force on a ball of radius $R$ and mass $M$ moving with ...
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### Is there uncertainity of position of the perfectly homogenous radiating body?

I heard the standard interpretation of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: Just the measurement affects the position of the body because always you want to see a body (=to measure the position), you ...
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### Magnetic field at focus of parabola

A parabola in $x$-$y$ plane carries current $I$, find the magnetic field at the focus of the parabola. Assume focus is at the origin and the focal length of parabola is $d$.
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### Velocity profile of a viscously damped wave

For a test case, I want to determine the velocity profile of a viscously damped standing wave. By linearizing the density ($\rho=\rho_0+\rho'$) and velocity ($ux=ux'$), the continuity and ...
45 views

### Why is SiO2 solid while CO2 is a gas?

I was under the impression that chemistry almost exclusively involves valence electrons because there isn't enough energy to strip off electrons further in. If that is true, and atoms in the same line ...
27 views

### How a paper plane(rocket) flies in air? what is science behind it?

What factors helps a paper plane to fly and can you explain how these factors help the plane to fly?
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### Intro Mechanics: Finding ball speeds after collision

So I'm reading about conservation of energy, momentum, balls colliding etc. and unsurprisingly there are hundreds of questions in my textbook where essentially they give me some of the variables (m1, ...
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### How does ground interact with a box rotating around its corner?

I have some questions about how forces $F$, friction force $F_{friction}$, and normal $N$ interact in order to the box below to turn (clockwise) about the red corner, without sliding. The force $F$ is ...
12 views

### Is an electron a superconductor?

A superconductor has zero resistance. What about an electron in a vacuum? Could this simple system be considered superconducting?
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### How is angular momentum conserved?

A uniform vertical turntable (mass M and radius R center O) is at rest on the xy plane and is mounted on a frictionless axle, which lies along the vertical z axis. I throw a lump of putty mass m with ...
3k views

### Irreducible tensors concept

This might be a little naive question, but I am having difficulty grasping the concept of irreducible tensors. Particularly, why do we decompose tensors into symmetric and anti-symmetric parts? I have ...
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### The derivation of the irreducible representations of the Lorentz group

I took the way of classification of Lorentz group representations from Sexl, Urbantke, Relativity, groups and particles (Germ. ed. 1975). But I don't understand it as I outline in the following: In ...
750 views

### Why can the Euler beta function be interpreted as a scattering amplitude?

The Wikipedia article on the Veneziano Amplitude claims that the Euler beta function can be interpretted as a scattering amplitude. Why is this? In another word, when the Euler beta function is ...
17 views

### How do you make a diagram for this vector problem? [on hold]

Question: The simple sum of two co-initial vectors is 16 units and the vector sum is 8 units. The resultant of the vector of the vectors perpendicular to the smaller vector. Find the magnitude of the ...
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### Would a person gain or lose weight after expelling a flatus?

Considering the chemical composition, mass, and pressure range of typical human flatulence, would a person gain or lose weight after passing gas?
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### What do “ℜe” and “A*” mean?

What do "$\mathfrak{Re}$" and "A*" mean in the following equation (taken from James Binney and David Skinner's QM lecture notes, equation 1.12), \begin{align} p(S\text{ or ...
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### Is there a formula/relationship between $q$, $m$, $c$, $\Delta T$ and $t$ (time)?

I am currently doing an experiment where I am burning methanol to test for the heat of combustion. To test this, I am heating 100g of water and raising it by 20 degrees Celsius before extinguishing ...
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### Wavelength vs Wavenumber etiquette

When am I supposed to use the terminology of EM "wavenumber", instead of "wavelength" (or frequency)? The concepts of wavelength and frequency are no problem for me, but wavenumber (number of ...
1k views

### Where does the energy come from when a current heats a wire (resistor)?

I'm trying to figure out an example from a textbook (Demtröder -- Experimentalphysik 2, pg. 198) where the energy transport caused by a current is depicted: Assume you have a wire (with some ...
80 views

### How does a converging-diverging nozzle not violate conservation of energy?

Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about fluid dynamics, and very little about physics in general. THis may be a really dumb question. Now, at subsonic speeds, converging and diverging nozzles ...
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### How would we experience sound if light velocity was (much) smaller?

Imaging the velocity of light was just 110% or so of sound's. How would we experience sounds? How would a guitar sound, for instance? My best guess so far is that, as guitar's strings moved more ...
270 views

### The relation between spectral function and band structure

I am confused by the wavevector in spectral function A(k,w). How to understand this k for a periodic structure? And how is it related to the k (in first Brillouin Zone) we use in the band structure? ...
56 views

### How do I calculate momentum for a particle in a box, using the momentum quantum operator? [on hold]

For a particle in a one dimensional box with $U(x) = 0$ between $x = 0$ and $x = L$ (infinite Potential well) the momentum for $n = 1,2,3,...$ is given by: $$p_n = \frac{nh}{2 L}$$ The wave ...
244 views

### Which way do black hole jets spin?

The centers of black holes and quasars often have jets coming out the two poles of an accretion disk, say north and south. Is it known if the two jets spin in the same direction or opposite ...
2k views

### How can Quasars emit anything if they're black holes?

We've heard it many times, nothing can escape the gravity of a black hole, even light once it's past the event horizon. If this is true, how can a black hole emit anything? Quasars are massive black ...
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### Speed of light/quasar [duplicate]

If the gravitational pull of a black hole is strong enough to stop the speed of light from leaving it , then wouldn't a quasar have to travel faster than the speed of light, at some point, to break ...
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### Magnus effect, Coanda effect, and the Bernoulli principle: What is balancing gravity on a spinning sphere vs. a stationary screwdriver?

I've seen videos of golf balls and screwdrivers levitated by a focused air stream. Reading the comments of these videos (and others), I see explanations of the machanics at work and their cause and ...
2k views

### How can rising bubbles shrink and disappear?

I was recently looking at a Wurlitzer juke box, and noticed something strange. It's decorated with liquid-filled tubes. Gas bubbles are injected at the bottoms of the tubes, and the bubbles naturally ...
30 views

### What is the total internal reflection?

From what I read, it sounds like when a light ray passes from one medium to the other, if the critical angle is reached so that the refractive ray is at 90 degree with the normal, the light ray does ...
4k views

### Why did high quality mirrors use aluminum coatings instead of silver?

I have two questions on mirrors. I’ve read that in the past quality mirrors were coated with silver but that today vacuum evaporated coatings of aluminum are the accepted standard. When I look at ...
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### What is the wavelength of the light and how far away from the central maximum are the first and second maxima? [on hold]

A single, monochromatic light source is shined through an etched, flat prism with a slit separation of 0.025mm. The resulting interference pattern is viewed on a screen 1.25m away. The third maximum ...
144 views

### Moving the endpoints of a wormhole towards each other

Suppose we have a perfectly safe portal/wormhole and we place the two endpoints facing each other so that a person between them would see an endless corridor (with infinite number of herself). What ...
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### How much energy is released per unit mass from depressurizing degenerate matter?

A neutron star remnant consists mostly of neutron degenerate matter. If you happened to suddenly have 1 kg of it in your lap without the pressure necessary to keep it degenerate, I suppose it would ...
15 views

### What is the small angle measurement from the central maximum to the first maximum? [on hold]

Two thin slits with separation of 0.0200mm are placed over monochromatic red laser of wavelength 632nm. What is the small angle measurement from the central maximum (zero degrees, in-line with source) ...
506 views

### Why does an image form at the intersection of light rays?

If image is simply what we see, then why, when light rays bend in the atmosphere, enabling us to see the sun, is there no intersection of rays? The concept is strange. I can not relate it to ...
### Why does time evolution operator have the form $U(t) = e^{-itH}$?
Let's denote by $|\psi(t)\rangle$ some wavefunction at time $t$. Then let's define the time evolution operator $U(t_1,t_2)$ through $$U(t_2,t_1) |\psi(t_1)\rangle = |\psi(t_2)\rangle \tag{1}$$ and ...