General Q&A about physics of any type and at any level
Filters (None)
In special relativity, spacetime coordinates are normally given as $$(ct, x, y, z) \tag{S}$$ with the metric being either $$g = \operatorname{diag}(-1,1,1,1) \tag{+}$$ or $$g = \operatorname{d...
I asked this question on Stack Exchange, and didn't get an answer, but maybe someone here will be able to help. In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, the normalization condition for position eige...
I have a question about the discussion of constrained Lagrangian systems in the book Mathematical Aspects of Classical and Celestial Mechanics by Arnold et al. (section 1.2.5). The Lagrangian syst...
I am having trouble understanding what a cosmic inflation is. Please try to suffice an explanation for non physicists / non formal students for physics / general audience. I understand that an ...
In the context of quantum field theory, why is it impossible for two photons (or other massless bosons like gluons) to collide and produce a single photon? This kind of a process is supposed to be ...
I am not sure if it is suitable in the site. I am asking the question here cause Olin and Celtschk said it here. They told me to use unit in every "single line" (Nope! They didn't say like it. Oli...
I have heard the physicist Laurence Krauss claiming that he believes that the universe is flat. Okay, but if we take four astronomers and we put one in the north pole, one in the south pole, one i...
The Rayleigh-Jeans law does a good job of describing the spectral radiance of a black body at low frequencies: $$B_{\nu}(T)=\frac{2kT\nu^2}{c^2}$$ with $T$ the temperature and $\nu$ the frequency...
The title is a framing for a theoretical question; I'm not asking for practical advice. A friend was recently in this situation and my attempts to apply what I remember of a couple semesters of co...
I was recently reading some questions here and there saying that "relativistic mass is outdated". I saw someone saying that "outdated" doesn't mean the concept is wrong. My question is what physici...
I was introduced to a somewhat novel derivation of the ideal gas law that starts by thinking about the number of microstates of an ideal gas, $\Omega$. Say we have a gas with a single particle in a...
If I have a rocket with some known number of engines $n$, each producing thrust with arbitrary direction $T_n$ and center of thrust $r_n$, the total thrust amount and direction $T_{total}$ is equal...
If we have a force which changes depending on the position of a particle, how can we find the position of the particle at some time $t$? We can find its velocity if it has travelled a given distan...
When a pendulum made of a conducting material moves through a magnetic field, it's a well-established fact that it experiences a retarding force, thus slowing it down, however, I'm unable to unders...
What is "disorder" in entropy? Entropy is measurement of "disorder". (Some says it's not "disorder") I had read "disorder" and "order" of entropy in my book. But I was wondering what "order" ...
$$\sum_i F_i \cdot \delta r_i$$ is virtual work when internal force is $0$. For that reason, $$\sum_i F_i \cdot \delta r_i = 0$$ Here internal force stands for what? When a object's displacement ...
Momentum is proportional to an object's velocity, and kinetic energy is proportional to the square of its velocity $\dfrac{mv^2}{2}$. It's pretty intuitive that if object B is going twice as fast a...
I know that equation for parallel resistance is $$\frac{1}{r_{tot}}=\sum_i \frac{1}{r_i}$$ But i wonder to see equation of series spring constant. If we add multiple spring in series. Then their ...
I want to write some code to control my whole house humidifier. I want my code to calculate the percentile relative humidity above which dew will form on my windows. I have sensors for air tempera...
In Srednicki's proof of the spin-statistics theorem for scalar fields ("Quantum Field Theory", section 4), he considers interaction terms, added to the free Hamiltonian, that are Hermitian function...
We have place a charged particle of 2C with mass 2kg, 1mm above a current-carrying wire of 1A.The charged particle has an initial velocity of 100m/s The magnetic field of the wire for simplicity w...
There are a couple different types of indoor air humidifiers. Most notably, the naive steam humidifier with a heating element, and then ultrasonic humidifiers. Now, heating water to create steam o...
Let's say we have a single plate with liquid on both sides rising up due to surface tension. The meniscus formed has a radius of curvature $R$. I'm trying to find the excess pressure, i.e, the pre...
Starting from the classical osmosis experiment, a U-shaped tube with a semi-permeable membrane, I would like to consider the case when the solute added to one of the compartments (labelled A) is co...
In 1970, the USSR began drilling at the Kola Super-deep Borehole. The target depth was 15,000 meters; The stated areas of study were the deep structure of the Baltic Shield, seismic discontinuit...
I was reading about Ether, Maxwell and Young-double-slit experiment. I got a question about Ether law. Let me say what I read about Ether Law. Suppose, a boat is traveling with Adverse of Water ...
What is semiholonomic is? Holonomic actually means two point can be expressed by a equation. Non-holonomic can be expressed but, not properly. Holonomic e.g. $r^2-a^2=0$ Non-holonomic e.g. $r^2-a...
$L=T-U$ Here, $L$ is Lagrangian. T is kinetic energy. U is potential energy. But, what Lagrangian actually is? I know what Holonomic and non-holonomic is. But, I was thinking what the Lagrangian re...
What will happen if an electron and a proton collide? They attract each other inside an atom. But, why they don't collide inside atoms? Does the "boundary" of the nucleus push them away? depends...
I was reading "Introduction to classical Mechanics" by David Morin. In that book they wrote that The third law says we will never find a particle accelerating unless there’s some other particle ...
Suppose a ferromagnetic material with initial magnetization $M_o$.Is there some specific formula which calculates the total magnetization $M$ as a function of $M_{o}$ and the Curie temperature $T_{...
Should Earth's moon colonies being deep underground ensure natural heating? By natural I mean "non artificial" i.e. not from "artificial" air conditioning. The question is based on the thought th...
We know that electrons always repel electrons. But, if somehow they collide, then what will happen? I found a related question of above one in Quora. An incoming electron can instead make them ...
A computer can store some number $n$ of bits in memory, and it can perform some number $m$ of essential computational operations, such as addition or multiplication, and rewrite those bits to memor...
In the lab I changed the angle the light hits a photoresistor and it doesnt obey Lambert's cosine law the conductivity of the photoresistor drops fast from +-20 to +-30 degrees angle.Why?
The major advantage of Alternating Current is that it can be transmitted to large distances without significant losses, which is not possible in Direct Current. Had economical superconducting wire...
May it be that there are more than 8/9 planets in our solar system which aren't detectable with the current technologies? Is there any theory suggesting that our solar system has more planets, all...
In classical physics book of kleppner, i read that An atom can "jump" from one stationary state a to a lower b by emitting radiation with $E_a-E_b$. The frequency of the emitted "package of radi...
Suppose we have a arc of charges with some charge density $\lambda(\theta) = sin\theta$.I am using polar coordinates for convenience.But how can I find the direction of the unit vector of the net e...
I'm interested in knowing the surface temperature of both sides of a double-pane or triple-pane window. Given the R-value of the window, and the air temps outside and inside, how can I calculate t...
The general formula for a EM wave (solving for the E field) is: where $\varepsilon = \varepsilon _{r}+j\frac{\sigma }{\omega }$ My professor told me that the conductivity of vacuum is 0 so we...
All given metrics are for orthonormal-basis. 2 dimensional spacetime : I saw that Minkowski Metric looks like this : $$\pmatrix{-1 & 0 \\ 0 & 1}$$ or $$\pmatrix{1 & 0 \\ 0 & -1}...
Suppose we have a gravitational wave which obeys the equation: $[G_{tt}-c^{2}G_{xx}]h_{\mu\nu}=0$ Lets take the case where $h_{\mu\nu}\ne0$ so we are left with the classical wave equation.Suppose...
I was wondering what's the physical meaning of Laplace operator. $\vec\nabla$ actually represent a field. I had seen that Laplace operator is written as $\vec \nabla \cdot \vec\nabla=\nabla^2=\Delt...
This gravitational field we move inside has some distance L after which it becomes 0.Before L it is just like any gravitational field. Suppose we move inside that gravitational field.The accelerat...
In signal processing, are signals modeled in only one way (digitally or analogously) or are there some signals which can be modeled in both ways?
In my notes from University the reason a material can exhibit superconducting properties is at really low temperatures electrons form Cooper pairs of which the electrons of the Cooper pairs have lo...
Suppose we perform the double slit experiment , but we fire instead 2 electrons instead of 1. In the double slit experiment performed in the 1920s a interference pattern was observed at the screen...
$$F=F(q,p,t)$$ $$\frac{dF}{dt}=\frac{\partial F}{\partial q}\frac{\partial q}{\partial t}+\frac{\partial F}{\partial p}\frac{\partial p}{\partial t}+\frac{\partial F}{\partial t}$$ $$=\frac{\part...
What are the SI units of the wavefunction Ψ(x).I know that [Ψ(x)]^2 describes the probabilty of finding a quantum object at a certain quantum state but what about the wavefunction instead?