# All Questions

0answers
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### Question about wave functions

What is meant by the "coherent wave function of a macroscopic body"? I found this phrase in a paper on QM, but am unfamiliar with the terminology.
0answers
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### Why do metal surfaces reflect thermal signature?

I recently borrowed a thermal camera from a friend and I tried to observe my palm print over a reflective metallic plate. When I looked at it through the camera, it reflected my thermal signature too. ...
4answers
924 views

### Will gravity pull together two bodies from the other side of an empty universe?

Lets say that there are only two bodies in the universe, 65 kg each. Other than that the universe is completely empty, no neutrons, no photons, no dark energy/matter, not even neutrinos (that is to ...
1answer
34 views

7answers
1k views

### Are quantum effects significant in lens design?

Over on Photography, a question was asked as to why (camera) lenses are always cylindrical. Paraphrasing slightly, one of the answers and follow-up comments asserted that quantum effects are ...
4answers
2k views

### What happens to light in a perfect reflective sphere?

Let's say you have the ability to shine some light into a perfectly round sphere and the sphere's interior surface was perfectly smooth and reflective and there was no way for the light to escape. If ...
2answers
128 views

### Why is normal ordering a valid operation?

Why is normal ordering even a valid operation in the first place? I mean it can give us some nice results, but why can we do the ordering for the operators like that? Is its definition motivated by ...
1answer
304 views

### Why are magnetic field lines perpendicular to the surface of a ferromagnetic material?

It is known that magnetic field lines become nearly perpendicular to the surface of a ferromagnetic material. The quantitative proof which uses the boundary condition requires that magnetization at ...
1answer
12 views

### Calculating Resultant Force and Torque

I'm working on a sandbox game that allows the player to build a spacecraft and attach thrusters in arbitrary locations on the hull of the spacecraft. The game is set completely in 2D. (I'm a ...
0answers
24 views

### Superman physics

Spoiler alert for the animated film "Superman vs. The Elite": In the ending fight scene Superman flies off with one of the (more or less human) villains and when he comes back alone he answers to ...
1answer
23 views

### Weight held by jet stream of water

Consider a bucket of weight $W$, held in air by a jet stream of water from the ground (moving vertically upwards) at height $h$. The water is fired from the ground at the rate of $\mu$ (units ...
4answers
1k views

### Is one way glass possible?

I am not talking about mirrors, just a plain window made of glass like material. Would it be possible to allow light pass only in one direction but not the other?
1answer
40 views

### Electromagnetic field and continuous and differentiable vector fields

We have notions of derivative for a continuous and differentiable vector fields. The operations like curl,divergence etc. have well defined precise notions for these fields. We know electrostatic and ...
3answers
822 views

### Why is there a controversy on whether mass increases with speed?

Some people say that mass increases with speed, some people say that the mass of an object is independent of its speed. I understand how some (though not many) things in physics are a matter of ...
0answers
14 views

### Can expansion of space create energy?

In this question, expansion of space is considered, and it is explained that gravity and electomagnetic forces prevent matter from expanding. The idea I get in my head is something like a weight ...
0answers
14 views

### Coulomb Exhaustion

In thinking about a perturbation model for Coulomb's law, one could imagine photons spewing off of a charge in all directions. The chance of interaction with a near by charge being proportional to ...
1answer
129 views

### Force problem related to adhesive and bonding

I have two PCBs (printed circuit board), and they are glued by adhesives, as show in the pictures. And the location of the adhesives are indicated on the picture (please notice that NO adhesive is ...
2answers
54 views

### Why doesn't a car slide down a banked road when there is no friction?

In case of banked roads without friction, there is an additional $mg \sin(\theta)$ which is unbalanced. Why isn't this taken into account because it is responsible for making the vehicle slide down ...
1answer
151 views

### As the universe expands, the wavelengths of photons are stretched, and energy is lost. What about electrons?

Will electrons, and other particles, also loose energy as they travel through the cosmos? They have wavelengths. Do they get "stretched"? My guess is that the EM force, somehow, counteracts this ...
1answer
30 views

### Can we make a camera that fits in one of the bands of the double slit experiment?

So, in Young's double slit experiment, we see where the particle lands on the back wall. What if we were standing at the back wall, looking toward the slits? Could we gain more information not by ...
2answers
253 views

### Conversion of ideal gas to real gas via $Z$ compression factor

The ideal gas equation $PV=nRT$ can be converted into real gas equation by compression factor $Z$ i.e $PV=Z~ nRT)$. My question is what is $Z$ and how does it arise? Is $PV/nRT$ a compression ratio of ...
5answers
600 views

### How was the formula for kinetic energy found, and who found it?

My questions mostly concern the history of physics. Who found the formula for kinetic energy $E_k =\frac{1}{2}mv^{2}$ and how was this formula actually discovered? I've recently watched Leonard ...
1answer
38 views

### Magnetic field above center of current-carrying loop

A current $I = 2A$ flows in a circular loop coil of radius $R = 10 cm$. Evaluate the magnitude of the magnetic field (in Tesla) at a point $P$ on the axis of the coil, and a distance $z=5cm$ away ...
1answer
14 views

### Can an experiment be designed to distinguish between actual wave interference and probability or pilot wave results?

I am a physics groupie, so please excuse me if this question is stupid, but I am trying to better understand the particle/wave duality in quantum physics. It would seem that, in the double slit ...
3answers
44 views

### What happens to a metal plate in the photoelectric effect?

In the photoelectric effect the electrons are supposed to be removed from the plate if light of appropriate wavelength hits the plate. If electrons are removed, the plate should get ionized ...
1answer
41 views

### What is the P-parity, T-parity and C-parity of graviton? Are these conserved in general curved space-time?

I'm curious about the P,T,C-parity of graviton? 1)Are these graviton's parities even or odd? 2)Is the C,P,T-parity alternatively conserved in Einstein gravity? And does the CPT theorem still hold ...
1answer
144 views

1answer
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### Gravitational Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy

When a yo-yo is released from a height $h$, the gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. However, the yo-yo obviously has less acceleration than $g$, $9.8\frac{m}{s}$. This means ...
2answers
145 views

### Increased likelihood of photon emission due to “nearby” absorber?

Is an excited atom more likely to emit a photon if there is a similar atom in the ground state nearby ready to absorb it? When I say "nearby" I guess I mean that the absorber has an approximately ...

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