Nathaniel

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I'm a post-doctoral researcher with a wide range of interests. My career is in complex systems science (or maybe cybernetics) and the origins of life, but I also have research interests in

the foundations of statistical mechanics and its relationship to information theory
Earth systems science
non-equilibrium thermodynamics in general

I'm also generally interested in the foundations of quantum mechanics and in black holes, though I wouldn't say I'm an expert on those things.

It's probably worth noting that despite the fact that my research is in physics-related areas, all my degrees are in other subjects. If I occasionally seem to start talking in an alien language, this is probably why.

	6,219 reputation	bio	website	nathanielvirgo.com	visits	member for	1 year, 7 months
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1h	comment	Quantum mechanics and everyday nature @user10001 I know, that's what I meant when I said "one could argue that it doesn't really count, since if you really think about it, you should expect the same result if light were just a wave." (Though I suppose I could add that QM is required to understand why the laser pointer works!)
2h	answered	Quantum mechanics and everyday nature
2h	revised	Wave function interpretation $y(x,t) = (0.35m)\sin(10\pi t-3\pi x + \frac\pi{4})$ fixed LaTeX
3h	comment	Relativistic Lagrangian transformations Possible duplicate: physics.stackexchange.com/q/12559
13h	comment	What is the general statistical definition of temperature? Ok fair enough, I see what you meant now.
15h	comment	What is the general statistical definition of temperature? Another little thing: you can use temperature when you have information about the particles, without losing that information. In that case you just get a distribution that looks like $p(E,\{N_i\}) = Z^{-1}e^{(-E + \sum_i \mu_i N_i)/kT}$ (the maximum entropy distribution for fixed expected energy and particle numbers, with $\{\mu_i\}$ being parameters we call chemical potential), so temperature is still well defined and $1/T$ still turns out to be equal to $\partial S(E,\{N_i\})/\partial E$.
15h	comment	What is the general statistical definition of temperature? A slight correction: the maximum entropy probability distribution for a system of fixed expected total energy is the Boltzmann distribution.
1d	answered	Is there a one-to-one relationship between colour theories and our trichromatic vision?
1d	comment	Lattice model completely constrained by boundary data I'd like to see more details of your model. That such a thing can exist at all is surprising and interesting!
1d	revised	Convert units from cal cm^-1 day^-1. to Wm-2 removed Google redirect from link
May 19	comment	Is the wave function objective or subjective? @EmilioPisanty I know. But this other question seemed in danger of being marked a duplicate of this one. Since this question is closed, it means the question cannot be asked. But it's a reasonable question that probably has a definite answer, so that would be a bit of a shame.
May 19	comment	Is the wave function objective or subjective? @Weissman I hope I haven't changed the meaning of your question too much by editing it. Please feel free to roll back the edit if I have.
May 19	comment	Is the wave function objective or subjective? @DavidZaslavsky subjectivity has a fairly well-recognised and standard definition, so I've edited it into the question.
May 19	revised	Is the wave function objective or subjective? reformatted, and added in the (fairly standard and non-controversial) definition of a subjective quantity
May 18	comment	What does the difference in odds for Bell's inequality tell us about quantum mechanics? @Xaqron can you edit the question to be more clear about what you mean by "missing data", and why this would lead to us thinking Bell's inequality is satisfied when it isn't? It's kind of hard to answer as it is, because we can't see exactly what you're thinking.
May 17	comment	What is a “gravitational cell”? The wording of the abstract, and the use of quotation marks, strongly suggests that the "gravitational cell" is something that will be described in the paper. I imagine it's some kind of gravitational analog to an electrochemical cell. The only way to find out for sure is to get a copy of the paper and read it.
May 17	comment	From where (in space-time) does Hawking radiation originate? @LeosOndra yes, that's exactly what I'm asking. (Note that for any real black hole there is a gas between the horizon and the observer.)
May 16	comment	From where (in space-time) does Hawking radiation originate? @RonMaimon would I be correct in understanding that as "close to the horizon, the photons are of such a high frequency that they pass through just about anything"?
May 16	comment	Boundary conditions on wave equation thanks, that's a very elegant argument.
May 16	comment	Boundary conditions on wave equation I guess the question is, why isn't that allowed? Since there is a discontinuity in the linear density of the rope, it's not immediately intuitively obvious that a kink can't develop at that point. (I think it can be derived from energy conservation, though.)