14 questions linked to/from Common false beliefs in Physics
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### Why does kinetic energy increase quadratically, not linearly, with speed?

As Wikipedia says: [...] the kinetic energy of a non-rotating object of mass $m$ traveling at a speed $v$ is $\frac{1}{2}mv^2$. Why does this not increase linearly with speed? Why does it take so ...
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### What objective criteria distinguish between valid science, fringe science and pseudoscience in physics?

Plenty of research activity in physics have been vigorously opposed by their opponents as pseudoscience or fringe science, while other research are mainstream. It is possible some topic is ...
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### Since cables carry electricity moving at the speed of light, why aren't computer networks much faster?

Why can't cables used for computer networking transfer data really fast, say at the speed of light? I ask this because electricity travels at the speed of light. Take Ethernet cables for example, I ...
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### How efficient is an electric heater?

How efficient is an electric heater? My guess: greater than 95%. Possibly even 99%. I say this because most energy is converted into heat; some is converted into light and kinetic energy, and ...
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### Speed of electrons in a current-carrying metallic wire: does it even make sense?

Does it make sense to speak about the speed of electrons in a current-carrying wire (non perfect conductor)? If so, what is their speed? Here are my thoughts: On the Internet (Wikipedia, ...
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### This sentence makes no sense, electrostatics and electrons moving in a conductor - current

I highlighted the part where the confusion is. The sentence said that the potential difference is 0, yet it then immediately talks about how electrons can have motion. What are they trying to say?
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### What experiments prove the greenhouse effect?

What experiments prove that heat can be "trapped" by a layer of material with suitable optical properties, such as carbon dioxide? I've read a little on Wikipedia but I've got only some names, not the ...
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### Is kinetic energy a relative quantity? Will it make inconsistent equations when applying it to the conservation of energy equations? [duplicate]

If the velocity is a relative quantity, will it make inconsistent equations when applying it to the conservation of energy equations? For example: In the train moving at $V$ relative to ground, ...
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### Velocity of a falling body as a function of time AND mass [duplicate]

I'm working on a small java program, and I was wondering if there was an equation to calculate the approximate velocity of a falling body, in function to its mass $M$ and the time $t$ since the ...
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### Appearance of atoms

I was watching a documentary entitled "The Atom" and one of the statements made was that Atoms behave differently when we look at them. I wasn't too sure about the reasoning behind this and i'm hoping ...
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### A battery generates current according to the resistances within a circuit(V=IR)

A battery generates current according to the resistances within a circuit(V=IR).The charged particles enter and exit the source with the same magnitude, however, since we have said that the current is ...
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### What near-future measurement technique improvements will extend our physical knowledge?

Inspired by the wiki-article on atom-lasers: Another application, which might also benefit from atom lasers, is atom interferometry. In an atom interferometer an atomic wave packet is ...