General Q&A about physics of any type and at any level
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 $$g = \operatorname{d...
I have a question about the discussion of constrained Lagrangian systems in the book Mathematical Aspects of Classical and Celestial Mechanics by Arnold et al. (section 1.2.5). The Lagrangian syst...
I am having trouble understanding what a cosmic inflation is. Please try to suffice an explanation for non physicists / non formal students for physics / general audience. I understand that an ...
I asked this question on Stack Exchange, and didn't get an answer, but maybe someone here will be able to help. In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, the normalization condition for position eige...
I am not sure if it is suitable in the site. I am asking the question here cause Olin and Celtschk said it here. They told me to use unit in every "single line" (Nope! They didn't say like it. Oli...
I have heard the physicist Laurence Krauss claiming that he believes that the universe is flat. Okay, but if we take four astronomers and we put one in the north pole, one in the south pole, one i...
The Rayleigh-Jeans law does a good job of describing the spectral radiance of a black body at low frequencies: $$B_{\nu}(T)=\frac{2kT\nu^2}{c^2}$$ with $T$ the temperature and $\nu$ the frequency...
I was introduced to a somewhat novel derivation of the ideal gas law that starts by thinking about the number of microstates of an ideal gas, $\Omega$. Say we have a gas with a single particle in a...
The title is a framing for a theoretical question; I'm not asking for practical advice. A friend was recently in this situation and my attempts to apply what I remember of a couple semesters of co...
$$\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$$ Here internal force stands for what? When a object's displacement ...
What is "disorder" in entropy? Entropy is measurement of "disorder". (Some says it's not "disorder") I had read "disorder" and "order" of entropy in my book. But I was wondering what "order" ...
When a pendulum made of a conducting material moves through a magnetic field, it's a well-established fact that it experiences a retarding force, thus slowing it down, however, I'm unable to unders...
If I have a rocket with some known number of engines $n$, each producing thrust with arbitrary direction $T_n$ and center of thrust $r_n$, the total thrust amount and direction $T_{total}$ is equal...
Momentum is proportional to an object's velocity, and kinetic energy is proportional to the square of its velocity $\dfrac{mv^2}{2}$. It's pretty intuitive that if object B is going twice as fast a...
I know that equation for parallel resistance is $$\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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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_{...
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...
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...
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 ...
$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...
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...
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...
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}...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
$$F=F(q,p,t)$$ $$\frac{dF}{dt}=\frac{\partial F}{\partial q}\frac{\partial q}{\partial t}+\frac{\partial F}{\partial p}\frac{\partial p}{\partial t}+\frac{\partial F}{\partial t}$$ $$=\frac{\part...
This gravitational field we move inside has some distance L after which it becomes 0.Before L it is just like any gravitational field. Suppose we move inside that gravitational field.The accelerat...
In classical physics book of kleppner, i read that An atom can "jump" from one stationary state a to a lower b by emitting radiation with $E_a-E_b$. The frequency of the emitted "package of radi...
In my notes from University the reason a material can exhibit superconducting properties is at really low temperatures electrons form Cooper pairs of which the electrons of the Cooper pairs have lo...
May it be that there are more than 8/9 planets in our solar system which aren't detectable with the current technologies? Is there any theory suggesting that our solar system has more planets, all...
In signal processing, are signals modeled in only one way (digitally or analogously) or are there some signals which can be modeled in both ways?
We know that electrons always repel electrons. But, if somehow they collide, then what will happen? I found a related question of above one in Quora. An incoming electron can instead make them ...
In the lab I changed the angle the light hits a photoresistor and it doesnt obey Lambert's cosine law the conductivity of the photoresistor drops fast from +-20 to +-30 degrees angle.Why?
My optician counselled me I don't recommend a 1.74 index with a metal grooved frame, like the one you want from ic! Berlin, because the edge will be less resilient and be more susceptible to chi...
What examples of a system can be described by a system of ordinary differential equations?
$$\begin{alignat}{2} && \vec \nabla \cdot \vec D & = \rho_f \\ & \implies &\int_V \vec{\nabla} \cdot \vec D \mathrm d\tau & = \int_V \rho_f\ \mathrm d \tau \\ & \impl...
I was looking for equation of motion. I came up with a solution but it doesn't satisfy me. Cause I was trying to find motion of that particle using Lagrangian. We know that $$W=\int \vec F\cdot d\...
Which one is correct? $$E=mc^2$$ or $$E^2=(mc^2)^2+(pc)^2$$ I mostly seen $$E=mc^2$$ from my childhood, and when I was learning problem solving in relativistic mechanics I had seen $$E^2=(mc^2)^2...
I saw following equation in Griffiths EM $$V(r)=-\int_\mathcal{O}^r \vec E \cdot d\vec l$$ While the surface was closed but not symmetrical circular. At first I was thinking $\mathcal O$ was repr...
