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Results tagged with history
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user 104696
History questions are welcome on this site whenever they have any bearing on our modern understanding of physics. However, if a question has only minimal or null bearing on our current understanding, or it specifically requires a historian's skills, toolset, and mindset to answer, then it should be migrated to the History of Science and Maths site. See the FAQ on Meta for more information.
11
votes
Accepted
How did Fizeau control the cog's rotational speed?
Fizeau in his paper page 92 wrote the following (rough translation) with regard to his experimental set up:
The first telescope was placed in the belvedere of a house [an architectural structure site …
- 99.9k
16
votes
Accepted
Fermat principle: how did they know the speed of light in different mediums?
$\dots$ how did Fermat(died 1665), or Snell (died 1626), know that light traveled slower in glass or water than in air?
They didn't!
To fit the experimental observations with the principle of least …
- 99.9k
0
votes
Velocity selector and charge to mass ratio of an electron
It meant that all the electrons that he deflected with electric and magnetic field were all travelling at the same velocity. This meant that they were all deflected by the same amount and travelled a …
- 99.9k
17
votes
Accepted
Foucault's measurements of the speed of light
Foucault published the results of his rotating mirror experiments in
Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences, Compt. Rend. 55, 792 (1862).
Foucault's account of the rotatin …
- 99.9k
123
votes
Accepted
Why is a second equal to the duration of exactly 9,192,631,770 periods of radiations?
That number, 9192631770, was chosen to make the new definition of the second as close as possible to the less precise old second definition. This means that--except for the most precise measurements- …
- 99.9k
14
votes
What's the significance of the nickel crystal in the Davisson and Germer experiment?
Serendipity.
Davisson and Germer were conducting experiments to investigate the "reflection" of electrons from the surface of nickel to find out how flat the surface was.
Whilst conducting their e …
- 99.9k
10
votes
Failure of Newton's corpuscular theory and success of photon theory of light
As an example, when using the corpuscular theory refraction of light and Snell’s Law is predicted using Newtonian Mechanics but a requirement of the theory is that the speed of light in glass is great …
- 99.9k
8
votes
How did Coulomb measure charges?
Coulomb did not know the absolute value of the charge but what he was able to do was to reduce the charge on one of his spheres by a known ratio.
He charged a metal sphere and used it in his experimen …
- 99.9k
1
vote
Accepted
How did Rutherford conclude that the electrons orbited the nucleus in his planetary model? A...
Couldn't he just say the electrons stayed in the empty space?
The attractive electrostatic force between the positive nuclei and the negative electrons has to be accounted for. So have the electrons …
- 99.9k
2
votes
Why lead plate was used in Rutherford's gold foil experiment?
I have read that lead plate is used to concentrate the beam of alpha particles . . . .
I think the word concentrate is inappropriate and the word collimate (to form a parallel beam) should have been u …
- 99.9k
1
vote
Accepted
Computing Newton's gravitational constant from Cavendish's data
A factor of two is relatively easy to account for in that in Wikipedia formula $G = \frac{2\pi^2 L r^2 \theta}{M T^2}$ the angle $\theta$ is the angle of deflection from not having any large masses pr …
- 99.9k
55
votes
Has anyone charged an object with 1 coulomb? Why was such a ridiculously large charge chosen...
Has anyone charged an object with 1 coulomb?
Not a problem nowadays with supercapacitors.
Why was such a ridiculously large charge chosen as the unit of charge?
Once the second and the ampere (both re …
- 99.9k