2,165 reputation
117
bio website
location
age
visits member for 7 months
seen 3 hours ago
stats profile views 183

May
19
revised In coordinate-free relativity, how do we define a vector?
corrected a slight error in wording
May
19
comment In coordinate-free relativity, how do we define a vector?
@BenCrowell I've added a section to my answer that may be more relevant.
May
19
revised In coordinate-free relativity, how do we define a vector?
added a section more relevant to the actual intent of the question
May
19
answered In coordinate-free relativity, how do we define a vector?
May
18
comment Why distinguish between row and column vectors?
I don't see how you need tangent vectors for hypersurfaces. The curves used to define tangent vectors are just maps from the reals to points on the manifold. Arbitrary hypersurfaces are just maps from $N-1$ reals to points in the manifold. Your observation about the necessity of a volume form seems reasonable. What kinds of manifolds lack volume forms?
May
18
comment Why distinguish between row and column vectors?
@Christoph Yes, tangent vectors can be defined through a family of curves through a point that all have the same direction. Is there something wrong with defining cotangent vectors via an equivalence class of hypersurfaces, containing a particular point, that all locally have the same linear approximation?
May
18
comment Why distinguish between row and column vectors?
Yes, that is true. I think what is more at issue is the choice that "vectors" mean tangent vectors and "dual vectors" mean cotangent vectors. The choice of what is original and what is dual is arbitrary. I agree that means we can't go in circles with our definitions, however.
May
18
answered Why distinguish between row and column vectors?
May
18
answered Can general relativity be completely described as a field in a flat space?
May
17
answered Vector cross product of $\mathbf{r}$ and $\ddot{\mathbf{r}}$ in polar coordinates
May
14
comment Electric field and electric potential of a point charge in 2D and 1D
Given a little tensor machinery, you can give $\nabla$ its own vector Green's function also. Much less circuitous, in my mind, than having to backtrack to potentials.
May
14
answered What do people actually mean by “rolling without slipping”?
May
13
comment Geodesic equations
Why did you choose the Euler-Lagrange equations instead, of, say, the geodesic equation for general relativity?
May
9
comment Magnetic Field versus Line Charge
The EM field is a field of oriented planes through spacetime. These planes are spanned by (1) the direction of the current (whether through space or time) and (2) the direction from the observer to the current (in space). Electric field planes come from currents that only go through time (such currents represent static charges), but when those currents have spatial components, they generate magnetic planes also.
May
7
comment Vector potential
@Mike Yeah,I had to derive it from scratch because I couldn't find it anywhere, just to check the sign of the cross product.
May
7
comment Is there a momentum for charge?
The center of charge you've defined is something like a normalized dipole moment. The "charge-momentum" is the same as a current.
May
6
answered Vector potential
May
5
revised EM Fields in a Rotating Frame of Reference
corrected an error
May
5
answered EM Fields in a Rotating Frame of Reference
May
3
comment Relativistic origin of magnetic field
Think about conservation of momentum: the $x, y, z$ components of momentum are all individually conserved, but you don't expect them to stay the same when you rotate a coordinate system. Charge and current are the same way, but with Lorentz boosts--there's a basic idea of conservation, but that doesn't apply between frames, only within individual frames. The charge on a neutral wire is zero because that's what neutral means--the charge and current densities must be constructed to make it so. Conserved quantities correspond to symmetries; it has nothing to do with being variable.