# All Questions

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### Can a human body supercavitate to survive water impact?

Inspired by this analysis of a human (OK, Captain America) hitting water feet first at terminal velocity, I'm wondering if supercavitation would be possible and whether it would improve your chances ...
16 views

### Why are the “coupling constants” constant?

The coupling constants (in the gauge theory) fix an inner product on the lie algebra of the gauge group and we use it to define strength of the fields. we are using ad-invariant inner products which ...
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### Could two identical stars revolve around each other in a common orbit if we only account for Newtonian physics?

Both a parent star and its planet revolve around the center of mass of the system, the reason we see stellar wobble. But if we take this to be true, which it is, there can be a configuration in which ...
6 views

### Calculate water flow through orifice

I'm not very good with fluid physics, and need some help. Imagine the following setup with water contained in-front of a wall with an opening on the bottom: How do I calculate the water flow ...
64 views

### Mathematica package for supergravity and string theory

I am looking for a Mathematica package that can manipulate tensors for supergravity, string theory or M-theory. I am particularly looking for a package that can do spinor and Clifford algebra ...
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### How can one reasonably theoretically model polycrystalline materials?

Many techniques are taught in advanced solid state courses but they are almost all derived for perfectly crystalline materials. For example, band structure really only appears theoretically when you ...
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### What happens when a dimensionless block of mass $m$ is let slip on a fixed rough wedge? [on hold]

What happens when a block is let slip on a rough wedge, as shown? Let us suppose that the coefficient of friction b/w the block and the wedge is $\mu_k$. I know that energy will be dissipated ...
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### Why do the anticommutation relations imply Fermi–Dirac statistics (Pauli Exclusion Principle) for the field quanta?

I was reading the following article Fermion FIelds and discovered the following passage not fully explained to me : It is these anticommutation relations that imply Fermi–Dirac statistics for ...
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### Calculate the current in mA which will be flowing through the two resistors [on hold]

Three resistors of 3,4 and 5 ohms are joined in parallel in an electric circuit. If a current of 150mA flows through the resistor of 4 ohms,then calculate the values of the current in mA which will be ...
36 views

### Relative acceleration pulley

Considering If we have pulley with strings on both sides giving different velocities to them, we know velocities of points between them, on diameter, as velocity vector is tangent to it, just ...
2k views

### Why I think tension should be twice the force in a tug of war

I'm going to provide my argument for why I think the tension in a rope should be twice the force exerted on either side of it. First, let's consider a different example. Say, there is a person named ...
32 views

### Top 10 unanswered physics questions [on hold]

Could I have a list of the top ten physics unanswered question?
66 views

### Does the geomagnetic field rotate?

The Earth rotates about it's own axis. Do the geomagnetic field lines rotate due to this rotation or not?
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### What would happen to a rocket car in a torus-shaped spaceship that encompasses the earth?

Suppose we built a enormous torus shaped space station that encompasses and leaves about 330 kilometers between it and the earth. So it's radius is about 6,371 kilometers . Obviously, this structure ...
606 views

### Symmetries of the Standard Model: exact, anomalous, spontaneously broken

There are a number of possible symmetries in fundamental physics, such as: Lorentz invariance (or actually, Poincaré invariance, which can itself be broken down into translation invariance and ...
119 views

### What conditions do a bunch of atoms need to satisfy to have a temperature?

Suppose that we have a beam of helium atoms travelling in a common straight line, equally spaced with the same velocity. If we place a thermometer in the path of this beam, the atoms will impinge on ...
23 views

### CARS microscopy

I have probably very naive question. In case of CARS microscopy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_anti-Stokes_Raman_spectroscopy we have $ω_{pr}+ω_{p}-ω_{S}$, how can we have minus $ω_S$? In ...
35 views

### Reluctance of torus shaped iron core with embedded wire loop

Imagine a circular wire loop (r = 50mm), the wire has an assumed diameter of zero, which is embedded in a torus shaped iron core with a circular cross-section of R = 10mm. A current in that loop ...
91 views

### Electric field generated by a point charge moving at the speed of light

As you see, this is the electric field generated by a point charge moving at constant speed v. I know that when $v$ -> 0, $E$ is just the Coloumb Law. But how do you interpret $E$ when $v$ -> $c$ ? ...
50 views

### Jump from a falling object [duplicate]

There have been quite a few plane crashes the past week and this question popped into my head of which I need a good explanation in science about the possibility of survival or not and why. Assuming ...
51 views

### Error in Standard Textbook “An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory” of Peskin and Schroeder?

On page 191 there is a equation for $D$ given by $$D=x(k^2-m^2)+y(k'^2-m^2)+z(k-p)^2+(x+y+z)i\epsilon. \tag{6.43}$$ With $k'=k+q$ and the constraint $x+y+z=1$. Also $p^2=p'^2=m^2$ and maybe $q=p'-p$. ...
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### Photovoltaic IV data

I am looking for any available measured solar-cell datasets (Voltage/Current) especially for organic photovoltaic cells for the testing of a software unfortunately I am unable to get the measured ...
33 views

### Connection to spin 1/2 electron system?

In another Physics stack exchange thread here, Spin matrix for various spacetime fields I obtained the generator of rotations of the SO(2) rotation group for an infinitesimal rotation of 2D vectors. ...
25 views

### About the derivation of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation

It is an old question for me. In Goldstein's book, the H-J equation is derived in this way. We want to find a generating function $F(q,P,t)$ such that the transformed Hamiltonian vanishes identically, ...
34 views

### Dimension agreement in canonical transformation

In this Physics.SE post, there is a transformation: $$Q = q,$$ $$P = \sqrt{p} - \sqrt{q}.$$ for Hamiltonian $H = \frac{p^2}{2}$. The post discusses the validity of this transformation as a canonical ...
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### Electrostatics coloumb's Law [on hold]

The force of repulsion between two point charges is F, when these are at a distance of 0.1 m apart. Now the point charges are replaced by spheres of radii 5cm having the same charge as that of point ...
102 views

### H field of this magnet? [on hold]

How can I know the magnetization force that this magnet applies to other ferromagnets? What is H(in Oe or A/m) of this strong magnet? From the site: ...
2k views

### What does the magnitude of the acceleration mean?

I am a little confused as to what the magnitude of acceleration is and what it means.
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### why are the anthropometric units (which are about as big as we are) as large as they are relative to their corresponding Planck units? [duplicate]

so this might have some duplicated inquiry that this question or this question had, and while i think i have some of my own opinion about it, i would like to ask the community here for more opinions. ...
28 views

### Help with deriving an asymptotic expression

Note: I don't know if this is the best place for this question, because it is very specific. However, I'm not sure of a better place to go (apart from one of the other SE's). If you have a ...
74 views

### What physical conditions would allow for this kind of perpetual seesaw

I'm working with a simulator(Box2D) and need to create these conditions. I have a perpetual seesaw with two objects on either side. I'd like for the following conditions to be met. The first ...
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### can we get electrical energy from gravitational energy? [duplicate]

Now I'm trying to give an answer of the question. Satellite rotates about earth by the gravitational force of earth. Now if we place the satellite in such an orbit so that it rotate in opposite to ...
19 views

### Propagation of light from a point source in seawater [on hold]

If the light intensity of a point source (480 nm) is 1.09 x 10-8 Wm-2 at a distance of 1 m, what would that intensity be at a distance of 0.005 m in seawater? I have used the Beer-Lambert Law to back ...
45 views

### Resources for theory of distributions (Generalized functions) for physicists

I am looking for tutorials, articles or books containing theory of distributions in context of mathematical physics. Please suggest.
24 views

### How to derive equation for probability current density in relativistic quantum mechanics [on hold]

How does one derive equation for probability current density in relativistic quantum mechanics? I am asking for textbook-styled explicit derivation. No need for any other background knowledge.
25 views

### Which experiment would be able to detect change in the speed of light? [duplicate]

Since the unit of distance is defined in terms of speed of light in vacuum, if the speed of light in vacuum were to change by "magic", what experiment would be able to detect that? Is there a theory ...
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### Macro-Level Explanation of Fluid Heat Transfer

Here's something I've been struggling with for a while. Say you have a hot fluid and cold surface (or the reverse, so long as there is a temperature difference) where the fluid flows over the ...
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### Understanding Poynting's Theorem intuitively

I understand that, broadly speaking, Poynting's theorem is a statement of conservation of energy. Energy density of a volume of current and charge decreases proportionally to work done on charges ...
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### How do inflationary models predict the generation of gravitational waves during the inflationary period?

Recent results from the BICEP2 experiment have produced a lot of talk about the primordial gravitational waves produced during the inflationary period. I would like to have some explanation about how ...
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### Are operators in quantum mechanics linear transformations?

Observables in quantum mechanics correspond to self-adjoint linear operators. If $\psi$ is an eigenvector of $\hat A$, then $\hat A\psi=\alpha\psi$ where $\alpha$ is the eigenvalue of $\psi$. ...
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### How to calculate the 2-point funtion of gravitons?

I'm curious about how to calculate the 2-point function of graviton, but there are no textbooks of general relativity covering this problem. So how to calculate it? In which book can I find the ...
78 views

### How do instantons cause vacuum decay?

From what I read about on instantons (Zee, QFT in a Nutshell, pg 309-310), an instanton is a vacuum solution that maps $S^3 \rightarrow S^3$ (the boundary of Euclideanized spacetime), which comes from ...
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### Atomic nearest neighbor notation

I recently got a correction to a paper that I am writing. The correction references a section in which I talk about nearest neighbors. The comment says: Do you mean NN, NNN, etc., or NN, 2NN, 3NN? ...
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### Just a contraction of indices

I came across a contraction which is not giving the desired result. This is a toy problem in how to get a supergravity theory in low energy limit of a superstring theory using the vanishing of beta ...
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### Why do physicists use LHC?

My question is why are we colliding particles in LHC to produce new ones? And these particles that they sometimes say live for a fraction of a second, how in space they exists then? In space all ...
101 views

### Moon's orbit period as seen from a spaceship traveling at 0.8c

I am studying special relativity and I am trying to figure out the following small problem which occurred to me: An observer, the pilot of a spaceship flying to or from earth at v = 0.8c, is ...
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### If two events separated by a spacetime interval of zero, can they both be said to be happening “now”?

Can the concept of c be validly expressed as "the rate at which an event propagates through space"? There was a television program last year featuring Prof Brian Cox. The presenter asked him "Is it ...
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### How do I know which force to use in moments calculation?

I'm working on some Statics problem, with the method of joints, etc and for all of them, we use sum of moments = 0. However, I'm very confused about which forces I should use to find the sum of ...