Subject: Re: Particle Acclerators and Relativistic Mass Increase
From: jtbell@presby.edu (Jon Bell)
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 23:11:03 GMT
Allen Meisner wrote:
> Yes, but particle accelerators use magnetic flux. Since it takes
>work to generate the magnetic flux,
This is true...
>the magnetic flux is doing work on the charged particle.
... however, this does not follow. The force exerted on a charged
particle by a magnetic field is *always* perpendicular to the direction
of the particle's motion. Therefore the magnetic force cannot do work on
the particle, whether by speeding it up or slowing it down. All it can
do is change the direction of motion (e.g. bend it into a circle).
The work (energy) that went into establishing the magnetic field remains
in the magnetic field until it collapses. A "back EMF" then appears in
the coils that produced the field in the first place. I used to do
demonstrations involving a large electromagnet; when I was done, I would
open the switch so that students could see the arc induced by the back
EMF, jumping the gap.
--
Jon Bell Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
Subject: Re: "What causes inertia?
From: savainl@pacificnet.net (Louis Savain)
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 23:42:19 GMT
[Reposting on different server]
In article <32A96BAA.2B05@mailhost.mnsinc.com>, MW
wrote:
>What causes inertia? I know a lot of people will say "mass", but why
>does mass resist when you push it? What's blocking it? I mean, if it's
>space all around it then there's nothing holding it back, nothing to
>attach to. I was just curious because we know so much about physics, so
>there must be an answer.
There are many subtle assumptions hidden in the question "what
causes inertia?" First of all, the question usually has to do with
macroscopic observations such as the pushing or pulling of an object
or the application of a macroscopic force. One would hope that if one
gets an understanding of the cause of inertia at the microscopic
level, that an explanation of the macro-phenomenon should
automatically follow.
One normally thinks of 'cause' within the context of the logic of
cause and effect. Is inertia an effect that requires a cause?
Inertia is usually defined as resistance to change. Does resistance
to change violate the logic of cause and effect? Let's take a closer
look at this. What is change? Is change a cause or an effect? Is it
both cause and effect? Physicists teach us that change is a result of
the application of 'force' and QM further maintains that 'force' is
mediated by the exchange of particles, i.e., the concept of 'force' is
the physicists' way of quantifying a series of particle interactions.
Let's take the case of the interaction of two particles: How does
inertia and change fit in this picture? Well, it seems to me that
change *is* interaction and all interactions take time. The less
energetic an interaction, the longer it takes. Is that what people
really mean when they talk about inertia? If it is, I don't see why
it's a problem because it does not violate the principle of cause and
effect. In fact it's a perfect example of cause and effect at work.
Cause: two particles come together. Effect: the particles interact.
No mystery there except for the specific details of particle
interactions, details that are beyond the scope of this discussion.
Having said all that, I still think there's a cause and effect
problem with regard to one particular type of motion, the so-called
'inertial motion'. Inertial motion is a change in position and
acceleration is a change in inertial motion. Both inertial motion and
acceleration are observable events or effects. There is no cause and
effect problem with regard to acceleration. At all times t1, t2,
etc..., we all understand that acceleration is caused by force and
that force is a series of interactions in the QM sense. But inertial
motion is a different beast, an effect without a cause. What I mean
is that physics does not provide a cause. Most annoying.
Sir Isaac Newton ignored all possible causes for inertial motion in
his "Principia" and wrote his laws of motion accordingly. The great
physicist, philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, Newton's
nemesis, disagreed with Newton on a number of issues including his
opposition to Newton's idea of "space" which Leibniz viewed merely as
an abstract "nature of the order of things" and not a physical entity,
one which is extrinsic to particles, as Newton and most other
physicists came to view it. Leibniz also thought that coming up with
a cause and effect explanation for inertial motion was of the utmost
importance. Too bad. Newtonian mechanics was so successful at
predicting the everyday motion of bodies that the problem never really
made it to the forefront of physics, even though many physicists think
it's an important one. SR and GR, just like Newtonian physics before
them, never took up the issue. That, too, is too bad. As an aside,
it's truly amazing to see how so many people can be so unabashedly
confident of their perfect understanding of inertial motion even while
not knowing the cause.
Thus in conclusion, the problem of inertia should be viewed from a
different perspective. IMO, we should be asking ourselves, not "what
causes inertia?", but "what causes inertial motion?" That, to me, is
the most pressing question in theoretical physics. Once we find a
solution to this problem, we will be well on our way to a TOE, IMO. I
have my own partially baked theory but it'll have to wait until I can
formulate it into an overall theory of motion, one which views
interactions as part of what I call the "conservation of identity"
(stemming from Leibniz's principle of "the identity of
indiscernibles"), a theory that should, hopefully, not only give a
plausible cause and effect explanation of inertial motion, but also
lead to an explanation of such perennial physics puzzlers as the fine
structure constant, 1/137. OK, I know, it's just a farfetched dream,
but it's a good dream to have. :-) I'd appreciate any comment or
criticism.
Best regards,
Louis Savain
Subject: Re: Mind-time (Re: faster than light travel)
From: curran@remove_this.rpi.edu (Peter F. Curran)
Date: 14 Dec 1996 22:54:55 GMT
In article <58v7us$hht@trojan.neta.com>,
blair@trojan.neta.com (Blair P Houghton) writes:
>Peter F. Curran wrote:
>>Immesurable? Not so! We have lots of ways of accurately
>>measuring time which all tend to agree with one another.
>>The only real discrepency is our subjective "feeling" of
>>time. Time exists independently of us, and our minds
>>were never intended to be accurate chronological measuring
>>devices.
>
>Not quite.
>
>Our minds in certain circumstances are uncannily
>accurate at temporal tasks. We don't have an innate
>sense of enumerated time, but those of us who are
>well-coordinated are capable of impressive feats.
>
>Juggling, quarterbacking, comedy, and music are obvious
>examples of ways our minds can apply time with precision.
>
> --Blair
> "You put the lime in the coconut
> and call me in the morning."
> -Harry Nilsson
I'm not sure any of the above skills requires "uncanny"
accuracy, except for perhaps music. Even then, I'd
trust the simplest quartz oscillator circuit, even
without temperature compensation, over the most
accurate human capability.
- Pete Curran
Subject: Re: A case against nuclear energy?
From: hatunen@netcom.com (DaveHatunen)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 00:11:49 GMT
In article <32B3323E.3C22@west.darkside.com>,
TL ADAMS wrote:
>DaveHatunen wrote:
>>
>> In article <58p196$j0k@service3.uky.edu>,
>> TL ADAMS wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> >Why, does the truth hurt. The commercial power/weapons production are
>> >so closely entwined that how can you remove your self from eco nightmares
>> >like Hanford. Its not even in the realm of current engineering ability
>> >to clean Hanford, although we sure as hell are going to try to mitigate.
>>
>> It's not clear exactly what the connection of this to US commercial
>> nuclear power is.
>>
>It must be nice, to be able to draw your boundries around one little
>section of the problem and therefore declare the whole industry is safe.
>
>Must be nice.
>
>And we further draw our little box to only include western technology
>so that the problems of the Soviets and Chinesse are also removed.
>
>Must be nice.
>
>Yet you lose the battle of public opinion because most people don't
>draw such nice little boundries. When they see a nice multibillion
>clean-up at a little site like Fernald, maybe they don't have your
>distachment to say this is from the "bad" nuclear industry, but we
>are the "good" nuclear industry.
No matter what silly little plays on words you are fond of, separate
problems are frequently separate problems. Not that the solutions to
one might not be of help for the other, of course.
Do you propose to condemn the American fossil power industry because
the old remnants of the Soviet Union have very dirty coal fired plants?
Or to condemn the modern iron and steel industries because some
less-developed countries have really ugly pollution from their plants?
(I grew up in a steeltown in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s; not a pretty
sight.)
Boundaries that define regions are necessary. Problems are most easily
solved by establishing system boundaries.
>I am not saying this is fair, hell it may not even be a valid
>preception, but it is a wide-spread preception.
Then the problem before us is to clear up those misperceptions.
> The sins of those
>other nuclear guys may haunt you good guys for many generation.
SAd, but true.
--
********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
* Daly City California *
* Between San Francisco and South San Francisco *
*******************************************************
Subject: Re: Creation VS Evolution
From: casanova@crosslink.net (Bob Casanova)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 00:15:14 GMT
On 14 Dec 1996 01:06:58 -0500, in sci.skeptic, owl@rci.rutgers.edu
(Michael Huemer) wrote:
>
>casanova@crosslink.net (Bob Casanova) writes:
>
>>Not to mention that most of the support for evolution comes from such
>>disciplines as biology and comparative anatomy (sorry if that's the
>
>Good point.
Thanks; I try. ;-)
I've heard the subcutaneous degenerate hind limbs in the
>larger constrictors cited as an example. That is: The larger snakes
>have, under the skin, degenerate back legs, which serve no purpose.
>The biological explanation is that the snakes evolved from lizards,
>and have not yet lost these no-longer-useful parts.
I believe the same is true of cetaceans: the skeletal structure of the
flukes and flippers (or are both front and rear "flukes"?) contain
all, or most of the limb bones of their 4-legged ancestors, down to
the individual toes.
>&,l?oy
>--
> ^-----^
> Michael Huemer / O O \
> http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~owl | V |
> \ /
(Note followups, if any)
Bob C.
"No one's life, liberty or property is safe while
the legislature is in session." - Mark Twain
Subject: Re: Div Grad and Curl are Dead...
From: baez@math.ucr.edu (john baez)
Date: 14 Dec 1996 16:39:05 -0800
In article <58ajcv$ks5@csugrad.cs.vt.edu>,
Nathan M. Urban wrote:
>In article <58aeiq$j90@panix2.panix.com>, erg@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>
>> I have long had the feeling that your various classical theorems of
>> differential geometry, all having the basic form of the fundamental
>> theorem of calculus "Stuff evaluated over interior of region equals
>> other stuff evaluated over the boundary" must be special cases of some
>> general Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, which could probably be
>> written in some suitably terse form, like "Q = T".
>>
>> Unfortunately my mathematical education stopped before I found out
>> what this meta-theorem would be.
My god! You're back! I'm lucky I just happened to tune in to sci.physics
again... I'm grading calculus finals and the boredom is just intolerable,
so I had to see what old sci.physics was like again. I looked at a
thread with an interesting title, and what do you know, it's you!
>In case you meant the latter, then I should tell you that such a theorem
>does exist, and is called the (generalized) Stokes theorem. In case you
>meant the former and already knew about that theorem, then maybe someone
>else who reads this who didn't know it before will now. :)
Yes, Nathan is write, all these theorems are now called "Stokes theorem".
This is one of the cool things about differential forms; they let you
state this theorem in its full generality.
Briefly, a "p-form" is a gadget that you can integrate over a p-dimensional
manifold (possibly with boundary), and the "differential" of a p-form is
a (p+1)-form. If w is a p-form we write dw for its differential. Then
Stokes' theorem says
integral_(boundary of M) w = integral_M dw
where M is a (p+1)-dimensional manifold and (boundary of M) is its
boundary, a p-dimensional manifold.
This theorem becomes even cuter if we write "boundary of"
as "d*" and write the integral so it looks like an inner product;
then Stokes' theorem is just
=
which should be reminiscent of how you define the adjoint of an
operator on a Hilbert space, and other sorts of "adjoints".
The other cool theorem that's easy to state using differential forms
is
d^2 = 0
which subsumes all that stuff like grad(curl v) = 0, div(grad f) = 0.
Thank deRham for inventing all this stuff! I usually talk a bit about
this near the end of the course when I teach multivariable calculus,
just so the students know that all that div grad and curl stuff is a
bit archaic and clunky.
Subject: Re: homework
From: oasis@mack.rt66.com (Foreign Accents)
Date: 14 Dec 1996 16:55:51 -0700
>>Mason Atkinson wrote in article
>><32ACD4C3.33AE@searcy.net>...
>> Where can I get some good help with physics homework?
>>
>In article <01bbe890$041a7cc0$47840cce@guest.xl.ca>,
>MHL wrote:
>Post your homework problems here and I'll work them out for you, free.
>Still Water Runs Deep.
>http://home.xl.ca/mpd
Let's not "work them out" for students, let's help them figure them out
for them selves. Giving the solution only hurts them! I enjoy giving
hints and trying to help someone out, but as a former student in Physics,
being given the solutions out right would have impeded my progress in
learning, and in many cases it did. If I was guided, not taken to the
solution, I learned much much more.
Tim
Subject: Re: The absurd debate
From: cpenning@zuzu-lounge.com (Craig A. Pennington)
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 18:25:47 -0500
Craig Allen Simons wrote in talk.atheism:
: On Wed, 11 Dec 1996, Richard F. Hall wrote:
:
: > Both Science and Religion require faith.
[...]
: Evolution requires a GREAT deal of faith!
Define evolution. I think you don't know what you are talking about.
: I am familiar with the theory,
: got a B in the class, but it is WAY far fetched.
And I am leaning towards the opinion that you are trolling. A 'B' in
the class, indeed!
: To think that something
: came from nothing and leave it all up to natural processes which also had
: to have a beginning somewhere before the existence of all we know today,
: yet how can natural processes come into existence when there are no such
: processes to expediate such processes.
You are correct in asserting that we can not assert knowledge beyond
"natural processes." How does this imply evolution requires faith?
To bring this a bit closer to reality, I assume you think that
chimpanzees and modern humans do not share a common ancestor.
Why do you hold this opinion, given the morphological, genetic
and fossil evidence to the contary?
: This may be difficult for some to
: believe, even when they have put their lives into such a system of random
: processes and natural selection. If natural selection were true, wouldn't
: it stand to reason that the human race would know be extinct?
Most scientists don't think so. What, given your current understanding of
evolutionary theory leads you to think that this should be so. Please be
specific.
: How about
: the apes we theoretically evolved from? If we evolved from them, wouldn't
: they be considered the inferior species, thus they should die off, but
: they're still here!
No. This misunderstanding probably comes from the misphrased "survival of
the fittest" description of natural selection. It would be more accurate
were it phrased "survival of the merely fit," and even then you need to
take into account the fact of regional isolation (meaning that the
"fittest" given a universal perspective need not be found in every
hospitable environment, for a number of reasons.) This is why introduction
of foreign species into isolated environs (rabbits to Australia) causes
such an upheaval in the local biological status quo.
: I chose to put my faith in God who created all things. Guess I am just
: stuck in the theological stage! ;)
What god? And what processes generated it, given that ... Oh, never mind!
:-)
: Thoughts and ponderings,
: Craig
Cheers,
Another Craig
--
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every
fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of
a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the
homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
-Thomas Jefferson
Subject: Re: A case against nuclear energy?
From: TL ADAMS
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 20:03:02 -0500
DaveHatunen wrote:
>
>
> No matter what silly little plays on words you are fond of, separate
> problems are frequently separate problems. Not that the solutions to
> one might not be of help for the other, of course.
My people consider these silly little words plays with more than a
little honour. The abillity for discourse and rhetoric was and is
highly respected amoung the old bloods.
>
> Do you propose to condemn the American fossil power industry because
> the old remnants of the Soviet Union have very dirty coal fired plants?
> Or to condemn the modern iron and steel industries because some
> less-developed countries have really ugly pollution from their plants?
> (I grew up in a steeltown in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s; not a pretty
> sight.)
Do I condemn? The concept of "I" has little to do with it. Try to
build a arc furnace steel plant in a down town area, and see if the
sins of 1970's Pittsburg are not visited to you. Try to build a MWC
system and see if the seens of past don't haunt you. Companies go out
of business because of these sins of the past, industries die because
of rapid public opposition. Try to use MDI at a plant site, see if the
phrase Bhopal doesn't get spread.
It was not my understanding that Hanford had no enrichment role. But
luckily, thats not a remediation that I have to get directly into.
Rocky Flats was bad enough, and that was the low-level crap.
>
> Boundaries that define regions are necessary. Problems are most easily
> solved by establishing system boundaries.
I question you choice of boundries, not the need for drawing them. It
makes no sense to ignore the environmental impact of enrichment,
processing, transportation of material, transportion of waste,
storage of waste.
>
> >I am not saying this is fair, hell it may not even be a valid
> >preception, but it is a wide-spread preception.
>
> Then the problem before us is to clear up those misperceptions.
Having Trolls like JMc spouting crap and twisting risk analysis around
like a Moebius strip isn't going to help. If you want to succeed,
be honest with your arguements, be honest with your reasons.
>
> > The sins of those
> >other nuclear guys may haunt you good guys for many generation.
>
> SAd, but true.
Well, it wasn't true, I wouldn't have said it.
Am still ticked that the Ruskies screwed up on the Mars probe and the
half kilo of Pu. Now, when NASA needs a thermogenerator for an
other planet run, it just going to be that much harder.
Subject: Re: Particle Acclerators and Relativistic Mass Increase
From: odessey2@ix.netcom.com(Allen Meisner)
Date: 15 Dec 1996 00:48:06 GMT
In jtbell@presby.edu (Jon Bell) writes:
>
> Allen Meisner wrote:
>> Yes, but particle accelerators use magnetic flux. Since it takes
>>work to generate the magnetic flux,
>
>This is true...
>
>>the magnetic flux is doing work on the charged particle.
>
>... however, this does not follow. The force exerted on a charged
>particle by a magnetic field is *always* perpendicular to the
direction
>of the particle's motion. Therefore the magnetic force cannot do work
on
>the particle, whether by speeding it up or slowing it down. All it
can
>do is change the direction of motion (e.g. bend it into a circle).
>
>The work (energy) that went into establishing the magnetic field
remains
>in the magnetic field until it collapses. A "back EMF" then appears
in
>the coils that produced the field in the first place. I used to do
>demonstrations involving a large electromagnet; when I was done, I
would
>open the switch so that students could see the arc induced by the back
>EMF, jumping the gap.
>
>--
>Jon Bell Presbyterian
College
>Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina
USA
Nevertheless, the way particle accelerators work is by pushing the
particle with one set of coils and pulling the particle with with the
next set. The flux lines propagate at c. The faster charged particle
will therefore be cut across by fewer field lines than the slower
charged particle.
Regards,
Edward Meisner
Subject: Re: Ultimate Particles
From: tdp@ix.netcom.com(Tom Potter)
Date: 15 Dec 1996 01:46:57 GMT
In <58uknv$6v4@news1.epix.net> jart@epix.net (Jack Tucker) writes:
>
>Tom Potter (tdp@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>: In <58eq1m$msa@news1.epix.net> jart@epix.net (Jack Tucker) writes:
>: >
>: >Tom Potter (tdp@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>: >: In <32A670EA.6BD9@gasbone.herston.uq.edu.au> Warlock
>: >: writes:
>: >: >
>: >: >logical Scientist lover wrote:
>: >: >
>: >: >> The work I have done suggests that Energy is universal in
type
>: >: >> and that its "condensation" states which we call the
Elementay
>: If you also read the articles at my Web site,
>: which were articles that I posted in this
>: forum, you will also find that my system
>: integrates Newtonian physics and quantum
>: mechanics. Rather than duplicate what
>: is on my Web pages, I would just state
>: that a mass can be expressed most fundamentally
>: as a time, and mass product of interacting masses
>: gives the "improbability" of the system absorbing
>: energy, and that the wave function is a function
>: of the reciprocal of the mass products.
>
>: Tom Potter http://pobox.com/~tdp
>
>
>It's all right from time to time to tell people in a separate subject
>about your home page. But I don't think a followup should tell the
>reader to "go somewhere else, read everything there and I'll be here
to
>answer any questions you might have". You might remember that 6
>months ago I downloaded your .zip and viewed it. Maybe I didn't
>do it justice. Maybe you've improved it. I would prefer a
>manuscript and would be willing to pay for it. If you insist that
>the only way I can appreciate your theory is to grasp it in its
>entirety and only from your home page then I'll put it on my list of
>things to do.
>
>Phil Fraley
>jart@epix.net
I make regular posts to these forums.
In fact, I just made one which develops
time, space, mass, the impedance of space
and pi form just cycles, which some people
might call spin. I only, refer people to
my Web site, when I have already beat the
horse under discussion to death.
I did make a couple of typo's in this post,
( I stated that the impedance of space
should be set to one, rather than 2 pi. )
and I will correct the typo's and repost
the article in a day or so.
Note that this article not only explains
time, space, mass, impedance, but it also
explains why pi, "e", "C" and "G" exist.
This post covers my theory
from basic cycles up to mass. It is a simply
matter to derive most of the other properties
for here, and in fact I give a simple equation
for doing so. I don't explain how quantum mechanics
fits in to classical physics in this article, but
I do in articles at my Web site.
As I just posted this article, it is not
on my Web page. If anyone is interested,
the article is "How impedance, time and space
arise from pi" and it was posted on Friday the 13th,
12/13/1996, a day that will live in infamy. ;-)
Tom Potter http://pobox.com/~tdp
Subject: Re: Particle Acclerators and Relativistic Mass Increase
From: nurban@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Nathan M. Urban)
Date: 14 Dec 1996 21:07:22 -0500
In article <58vhfq$rdq@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>, odessey2@ix.netcom.com(Allen Meisner) wrote:
> I am very sorry. Please forgive me. Some accelerators use
> electrostatic fields. However, the accelerators that have achieved
> relativistic speeds, like the one at fermilab, use magnetic fields.
Ahem. Allow me to quote from one of Fermilab's pages:
[http://www.fnal.gov/accel_principles.html]
"All particle accelerators start from the principle that electrically
charged objects exert a force on each other - opposite charges attract;
like charges repel. That is, a particle with a positive or negative
charge experiences a force when it is in the presence of an electric
field. When a net force acts on an object, the object accelerates. The
trick in a proton accelerator is to keep applying the force to
accelerate protons in the same direction until they are going at almost
the speed of light."
[...]
"To give the proton still higher energy, we can send it through a series
of small acceleration gaps, arranged one after another. A proton moving
along its path approaches the first acceleration gap in the path. The
gap is like the one between the plates connected to the battery, but
with a much higher voltage. Once the proton enters the gap, it feels the
force of the electric field and accelerates to the negative side of the
gap, gaining energy. As it leaves the gap, we shield it from the field
in the gap and keep the proton speeding on its way down the path, with
its added energy. We now send the proton through a second gap. It gains
a second boost of energy on top of the first. By sending the proton
through many accelerating gaps, and shielding it from the electric field
when it is between gaps, we can use a succession of small voltages to
boost the proton to a higher and higher energy. Accelerators that work
this way are called linear accelerators, or linacs, and they can
accelerate protons to a few hundred million electron volts or MeV. The
more gaps a linac has, the higher the energy it can give to a proton -
and the longer the linac gets. When a linac runs out of real estate, it
reaches its energy limit.
"But what if we took the proton as it shot out the end of the linac and
bent its path around to the beginning, to go through the series of
acceleration gaps again, this time at a much higher starting energy? We
could send it back to the beginning many times, each time at a higher
energy than before. In fact, we can do exactly this. Because the path of
a moving charged particle bends in a magnetic field, we can use magnets
to bend the proton's path, sending it circling back to the beginning.
Each time the proton goes around the circle and through the accelerating
gaps it gains more energy. To keep it on the same circular path as it
gains energy, we must make the magnetic field slightly stronger each
time it goes around. We synchronize the increase in the magnetic field
with the proton's increasing energy. To keep our proton and billions of
others like it circling together, we focus them into a tight beam.
Voila! We have made a circular accelerator of the type called a
synchrotron, of which Fermilab's Tevatron is the world's most powerful.
Our proton synchrotron can give particles energies of nearly a trillion
electron volts, or one TeV."
--
Nathan Urban | nurban@vt.edu | Undergrad {CS,Physics,Math} | Virginia Tech
Subject: Re: faster than light travel
From: nurban@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Nathan M. Urban)
Date: 14 Dec 1996 21:33:19 -0500
In article <19961214005011236022@peu-19.pf.eunet.de>, Marco.Binder@p-net.de (Marco Binder) wrote:
> I'm just a high-school student, but as far as I know, the experiments at
> Cologne (and at some American universities, too) really produced
> particles, moving faster than the speed of light in vacuum, so at aprx.
> 4.7 times c. This effect was only possible because of tunneling
> particles (eg electrons) through a barrier (tunneling = let things pass
> unpassable barriers; or so). So they really transmitted information
> faster than light! Quantum effects!
This is still under debate. Check out:
http://lal.cs.byu.edu/ketav/issue_3.2/Lumin/lumin.html#quantum
--
Nathan Urban | nurban@vt.edu | Undergrad {CS,Physics,Math} | Virginia Tech
Subject: Re: Physics GRE
From: Michael Niczyporuk
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 21:48:46 -0500
jjtom4@imap2.asu.edu wrote:
>
> I wrote:
> : Advice / comments. What's a "good" score?
> : (i have to take it next saturday)
>
> Ugh... I just took it a coupla hours ago. I'd appreciate it if someone
> would post a story or two about great physicists or mathematicians who did
> really lousy on their entrance exams or some other inspirational story of
> the kind... (No Feynman stories for christ's sake...)
>
> -John
Hi John,
I took it today also (and look forward to inspirational stories
as well!). Did you study using old GRE tests, by the way? Compared to
the previous tests in the GRE practice book, this one seemed MUCH
harder. Most of the problems in the practice book were really
straightforward. I would say maybe 2/3 of the questions could be
answered without writing anything down, just by looking at limits and
order-of-magnitude. (I'm not including the "reflex" questions like:
"The ground state energy of hydrogen atom is...) But on the exam today,
I found VERY few questions that could be answered without actually
doing algebra, integrals, etc. I mean, on an exam like this, if you
have to work out everything (even if you know how), you're screwed.
There's just no time. Almost all of the answers even had the right
units, the right "form"--you actually had to calculate the pre-factor.
The amount of problems requiring number crunching was also larger, IMO.
Well, that was my impression. I'm a little less optimistic than
before the test, that's for sure!
Mike
Subject: Re: [NOISE] Homework for God
From: baez@math.ucr.edu (john baez)
Date: 14 Dec 1996 17:47:56 -0800
In article <58fnum$ai1@panix2.panix.com>, God wrote:
>You are universe 10^(654) - 22 in the current series, approximately.
Approximately??? Did you lose count or something?
>It took me a long time to tweak some of the parameters so that
>mere logical evolution came up with Mexican fast food, the Usenet,
>and you, Hauke, to ask me this question.
>
>Be seeing you.
>
>/End Divine Connection/
Hmm, this reminds me of Olaf Stapledon's science fiction novel
"The Star Maker". He keeps broadening the scope of this novel
and one-upping himself until he finishes off by discussing
God's experiments with universes. God starts with simple ones
lacking the concept of time, and then invents one
that just goes "tick tick tick tick...", and then all sorts of
interesting dynamical systems, and then universes with life, and
then universes with consciousness, and so on, until finally God invents
one that is a full-fledged equal, and they fall in love and get married,
or something like that. We're somewhere in the middle of this
sequence of experiments.
Actually the most interesting part of this novel comes earlier, but far in
our future, when all the galaxies in our universe have become completely
filled with intelligence, and they link up to form a single conscious
entity, which then... realizes its mortality.
Subject: Re: Particle Acclerators and Relativistic Mass Increase
From: odessey2@ix.netcom.com(Allen Meisner)
Date: 15 Dec 1996 00:41:30 GMT
In <58vcbe$pf6@dfw-ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> odessey2@ix.netcom.com(Allen
Meisner) writes:
>
>In <58v60b$m57@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> nurban@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Nathan M.
>Urban) writes:
>>
>>In article <58ut4a$72u@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>,
>odessey2@ix.netcom.com(Allen Meisner) wrote:
>>
>>> In <58uogu$l7k@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> nurban@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Nathan
>M.
>>> Urban) writes:
>>
>>> >In article <58umte$h2h@dfw-ixnews11.ix.netcom.com>,
>>> odessey2@ix.netcom.com(Allen Meisner) wrote:
>>
>>> >> The only way you can accelerate a charged particle is with
>magnetic
>>> >> flux.
>>
>>> >Electric fields work too. In fact, a magnetic field does no work
>on a
>>> >particle.
>>
>>> Yes, but particle accelerators use magnetic flux.
>>
>>They don't use magnetic flux to increase the speed or energy of the
>>particle, though.
>>
>>> Since it takes
>>> work to generate the magnetic flux, the magnetic flux is doing work
>on
>>> the charged particle.
>>
>>The magnetic field does no work on a particle. You cannot increase
>the
>>kinetic energy of a particle by applying a magnetic field. Just look
>at the
>>force equation:
>>
>> F = F_E + F_B = qE + q(v x B)
>>
>>Since the magnetic force F_B is always perpendicular to the
particle's
>>velocity, that force can do no work on the particle.
>>
>>In a particle accelerator, electric fields are used to accelerate the
>>particle (more precisely, to increase the particle's energy), by
>>passing it through small "acceleration gaps". (Think of a particle
>>being accelerated by the electric field in a parallel-plate
>>capacitor.) The magnetic fields are used to bend the path of the
>>particle in a circle, so it can pass throug the same electric
>>acceleration gaps over and over. They are used to change the
>>particle's direction. (Hence they _do_ accelerate the particle; they
>>just do no work on it.)
>>
>>Also, of course, you have to note that the way an electromagnetic
>field
>>breaks up into electric and magnetic fields depends on the particle's
>>velocity.
>>--
>>Nathan Urban | nurban@vt.edu | Undergrad {CS,Physics,Math} | Virginia
>Tech
>
> I think that you are very much mistaken. You can not use
>electrostatic forces to accelerate charged partricles. It is
absolutely
>impossible and you should be ashamed of yourself for even suggesting
>it. To build up a sufficient electrostatic charge requires even more
>time than to create magnetic flux. How in the world could you use
>charged plates to accelerate a particle? The electrostatic charge on
>the plates must be time varied also to produce acceleration.
>Electrostatic potentials also propagate at c. It also takes a much
>greater time to build up sufficient charge than to generate magnetic
>flux. And this doesn't even address the problem of how to orient the
>plates so that they don't get in the way of the charged partricles.
Not
>onlt this, but you are also mistaken about the way real particle
>accelerators work. I know of none that use electrostatics.
>
>Regards,
>Edward Meisner
I am very sorry. Please forgive me. Some accelerators use
electrostatic fields. However, the accelerators that have achieved
relativistic speeds, like the one at fermilab, use magnetic fields. In
addition, my arguments hold with double force for electrostatic
accelerators, for the reasons given above. It takes much longer to
increase electrostatic potential than to generate magnetic flux. If the
charged particle is at one end of the "D" and the electrostatic fields
are switched the potential will propagate at c. The charged particle
moving at relativistic fiels will already be halfway to the opposite D
before it even encounters the opposite potential. In addition, since it
takes longer to build up electrostatic charge the relativistic particle
will experience a lower overall potential since the particle will reach
the opposite end of the "D" before the potential has a chance to build
up and at this point it is already necessary to switch the
electrostatic potential.
Regards,
Edward Meisner
Subject: Re: The absurd debate
From: pspray@arn.net (pspray)
Date: 15 Dec 1996 02:34:58 GMT
>Evolution requires a GREAT deal of faith!
>
>I chose to put my faith in God who created all things. Guess I am just
>stuck in the theological stage! ;)
Somehow I think that the creationists have put up a straw man for their
view of evolution. There are various theories of evolution, and only a few
actually leave no room for God. Yet it is these extremist viewpoints
that the creationists point to when they talk about evolution.
Evolution just means change, in a natural selection manner.
To look at the situation in the Deist manner, we could say that God is the
Watchmaker and evolution is how the watch runs. I think that God made the
Universe and it hit the ground running, not staying in one place.
The physical evidence points toward some sort of evolution of living things,
yet there are enough gaps in the evidence to also assume that some
Intelligence was back of the system. This Intelligence we call God.
To say that all evolutionists are atheists is a straw-man argument that just
doesn't fly. Certainly some are, but that doesn't make the case for a
six by 24 creation any more plausible. I think God is still working,
tweaking something here, something there, yet letting most of the system
work by itself according the the original plan.
-- pHil
Subject: Re: A photon - what is it really ?
From: tdp@ix.netcom.com(Tom Potter)
Date: 15 Dec 1996 02:08:22 GMT
In <58v81f$eig@news1.epix.net> jart@epix.net (Jack Tucker) writes:
>
>Tom Potter (tdp@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>>>
>>>Ray Tomes wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Peter Diehr wrote:
>>> >
>>> > >I've never seen any claim made that Planck's constant can be
>>derived
>>> > >from classical physics ... unless one adds at least one new
>>ingredient
>>> > >to the pot: you have to assume quantization in some fashion.
>>.....(snip)
>>> There are many kinds of quantization though. There is amplitude
>>> quantization of signals, time quantization of the samples,
>>> quantization from integration, from normalization to unity,
>>> and the quantization for a linear oscillator whose potential
>>> energy is an homogeneous quadratic function, the frequency
>>> is independant of the amplitude leads to hf in QM.
>>
>>As I see it, Classical Physics is the
>>interval between effect ( measurement ) and cause,
>>
>>and Quantum Mechanics is the
>>interval between cause and effect
>>( Radiation, photon, etc. ).
>
>I don't see how Classical or Quantum Mechanics can be intervals.
Maybe I should have said,
that Classical Physics deals with what the properties of
a system are, after a measurement and before another change, and
that Q.M deals with what happens between cause and effect"?
>>A measurement, defines a "real world"
>>interval of known properties, such as
>>charge, energy, velocity, etc.
>
>I can see intervals of space, time or even space-time, but the use of
>"interval" for other (particle?) properties is confusing to me.
>
>>Now, if you accept this a correct
>>definition, then Planck's Constant
>>can be defined in terms of Classical
>>properties:
>>
>> h(electron) = Q^2 * C * mu(medium)
>> --------------------
>> 2 * fine structure(electron)
>>
>>Now I assert that Planck's Constant as
>>normally used refers to a property of
>>electrons, as does the fine structure constant.
>>In other words, protons have a separate
>>"Planck's Constant" and a separate
>>"fine structure constant", as does the
>>totality of the universe.
>>
>I have the opposite view. Spin (angular momentum ~ h_bar) is the
>only constant.
In order to have symmetry between both
parties to a two body interaction, it is
necessary to define two separate "Planck's
Constants" if the bodies have different masses,
such as in a proton/electron interaction.
It is common to focus on the less massive party to
an interaction such as the Earth in the Earth/Sun
interaction, and the electron in an electron/proton
interaction, and think of it as an object with mass
varying in media, and to "freeze" the more massive
body and ignore what is happening to it. For example,
as I have pointed out several times in these forums,
the Earth does NOT revolve around the Sun. The Earth
and the Sun interact about a common point, in a
common time. When we ignore the "h" of the massive
body, we end up with the "reduced mass" problem.
>>In other words, of one measured the
>>reaction of a proton, or the universe,
>>or some portion of the universe between
>>a proton and the whole ball of wax to
>>the elecvtrn, one would have to use
>>different constants.
>>
>>Of course, "C" in the equation above is
>>"the speed of light" which I assert is
>>simply the more fundamental interaction
>>time multiplied by a universal distance per time
>>constant, and mu is the permeability of the
>>medium in which the measurement is being made,
>>which is usually space or air. The permeability
>>takes the medium into account when making
>>the measurement.
>>
>>Tom Potter http://pobox.com/~tdp
>>
>We agree in the sense that there is a basic difference between
>electrons and protons. You say there is a universal distance per time
>constant and that h_bar and mu and other things change. I say
>that h_bar is constant and that the internal velocity is different
>or, said another way, the randomization time is different (by a
>factor of 137 between the electron and proton). I go further.
>There are distinct intermingled universes: the electron's is negative
>or dominated by antispinors. The proton's is positive or dominated
>by spinors.
You may be right,
but I have seen no evidence of any changes
in any systems in our universe, that must
be explained by going outside our universe,
unless you consider that every sentient entity
is a separate universe that interacts in a
universe common to other sentient entities,
and I suspect that such is the case.
It is my perception that the concepts of
"h", "C", strangeness and quarks, have done more to
retard the development of physics than anything
since Aristotle.
Tom Potter http://pobox.com/~tdp
Subject: Re: Create ball lightning w/ kitchen microwave oven?
From: mattingly@dcdu.com (Robert Mattingly)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 02:58:55 GMT
On 13 Dec 1996 12:17:32 -0800, rbarnett@alcor.usc.edu (rbarnett)
wrote:
>I was doing some research into ball lightning and came across an
>interesting experiment. I found this piece of material from the Journal
>of Geophysical Research (Vol. 99, No. D5, Pages 10679-81, May 20, 1994).
>The article is entitled "Laboratory-produced ball lightning," by the
>author Robert K. Golka Jr.
>
>Within the article he discusses methods of short-circuiting 60-cycle
>currents across copper and aluminum electrodes under water. However, at
>the top of the article is an 'Abstract' section, and he writes:
>
>"...Although I am hoping for some other types of ball lightning to emerge
>such as strictly electrostatic-electromagnetic manifestations, I have been
>unlucky in finding laboratory provable evidence. Cavity-formed plasmodes
>can be made by putting a 2-inch burning candle in a home kitchen microwave
>oven. The plasmodes float around for as long as the microwave energy is
>present."
>
>I am wondering if anyone has tried this for themselves. I have not yet
>had a chance to put a lit burning candle in a kitchen microwave oven and
>turn on the power. Has anyone done this before... do actual plasmodes of
>ball lightning float around within the inside of the oven? If so, does
>anyone have an explanation to why this occurs?
>
>Thanks much, please respond via e-mail to my address.
>
>rbarnett@usc.edu
>
>P.S.> If you destroy your kitchen microwave oven by testing out this
>experiment; I am not responsible for any damages.
I have no explanation, but it does indeed work.
