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12:21 AM
@ManishEarth You're right. That was not intentional. I tried to get it right, because I knew I don't know the correct spelling. I just wasn't careful enough.
 
@ChrisWhite lol, but seems true
 
1:28 AM
@Gugg Hmmm.... Then, I think I already am :P
 
 
4 hours later…
5:41 AM
4
Q: I reached a result concerning displacement with quantized time intervals. Am I on to something?

KurtA few days ago, I realized a similarity between distance with constant acceleration, $d = v_i t + 1/2 a t^2$, and the sum of integers up to n, $(n^2 + n)/2$. This came up again today when I decided to work out some formulas for distance and velocity with constant acceleration updated at discrete ...

Very impressive mathjax edit! That must have taken a very long time.
If I could I'd upvote the edit :-)
 
@ColinMcFaul Don't worry, happens to me as well. My pet peeve is "weird", I can never remember how to spell that.
@BrandonEnright There are some tools that make it easier. Though the tool I linked to is halfway through a renovation, so it doesn't work perfectly anymore.
 
user54412
@ManishEarth I just asked another question - I blame you now for getting me into this habit :P
 
ha!
 
user54412
and at this hour, it's probably something trivially solved by anyone more awake than me
 
@ChrisWhite it hasn't hit the main page or your profile yet.
 
user54412
5:48 AM
oh, it's on tex.se
 
user54412
no epic physics questions tonight
 
Regarding your question, I chatted with dmckee a bit about it
There was a pretty good paper that came out of the opera debacle. The blog post that pointed me to the paper is profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/…
 
user54412
(unless someone wants to answer the excellent question of what's going on with my awesome stellar structure code?
 
user54412
::goes back to looking at opacity tables::
 
@ChrisWhite the thing about the paper that post is about is that matt strassler keeps saying "if a neutrino travels faster than an electron could" which seems to imply that in any case where an electron would emit cherenkov radation the paper applies. But the paper seems to be restricted to > c only
 
5:51 AM
On Soviet TeX.SE, rep hunts for YOU!
(Seriously though, it's easy to get +20 on questions/answers there)
(And sorry if I offended any Russians out there)
@BrandonEnright Any reason for that?
 
user54412
yeah, I know - I actually have quite a lot of tex experience too - but there's only so much time to answer questions, and I prefer mulling over physics
 
Or maybe there's something that's vacuum-specific
@ChrisWhite I'm a TeX newbie -- I am good with amsmath and can manage simple documents in TeX, but I have yet to understand all the different tweaky things
 
@ManishEarth it may be that matt strassler wasn't very careful about his wording in the blog. It may also be that the electron pair production would happen whenever the neutrino is traveling faster than a photon in the given medium. I can't tell
 
@BrandonEnright ah
 
user54412
@ManishEarth that comes with time, and lots of OCD ;)
 
5:54 AM
:P
 
My first use of TeX was 43 days ago (how long I've had an account on this site)
 
user54412
one day I plan to create my own font and kerning table
 
user54412
after mastery of serifs, the world is mine for the taking!
 
Half an hour ago my MA108 co-prof asked me "you're a moderator on Stack Exchange?". I'd posted a link to one of my math.SE questions on our internal course forum to help solve a debate. Apparently he followed my profile and saw the diamond. O_0
3
 
user54412
nice
 
5:58 AM
I am sometimes scared when people follow links and find out more about me -- I don't mind them knowing, but it's a bit creepy. For example, a lot of folks know my institute by following a link on my profile to my blog.. :S
 
People are curious creatures. If we weren't Facebook wouldn't exist. If we weren't the whole idea of having a "profile" on this site wouldn't exist :-)
 
user54412
fortunately my stackexchange profile is pretty much all the internet knows of my existence
 
user54412
i suppose one of these days I really should make a webpage for job searching reasons....
 
Of course, that's mainly for programmers, but that doesn't stop me from abusing it :P
@BrandonEnright TeX is beautiful. It has the potential to impress :D
 
Yeah all of the papers I've co-authored were in TeX however I wasn't the one that setup the document in any way so I was basically writing text between markers without any real knowledge of what they did.
MathJax is a great democratizer for TeX since these days everyone has a web browser that does JS.
At least the mathmode portion of TeX.
 
6:09 AM
Yep. Though IIRC there are some heavy JS libraries in the works for full blown LaTeX in browsers
 
I'm quite resistant to "Web 2.0" and all of the heavy use of JS these days however I'm very pleasantly surprised at how well this site works and how useful MathJax is. I've also started using Google Docs for a few things. The web is slowly wearing down my resistance.
 
user54412
wow, question answered in < 30 minutes - and quite beautiful too
 
I can only solve about 20% of the damn "reCAPTCHA" images.
Apparently I'm not human.
 
@BrandonEnright neither am I :P
This is why TeX is good:
(my crappy GIMP skills are no doubt evident from that)
 
6:35 AM
Aaand the spammer is back.
 
I really want to know what is going on in the spammer's mind , is he really hoping someone will get fooled especially on a physics SE .
 
It seems to be a whole bunch of spammers, all working in a mechanical Turk like system
 
Why are they spamming with these kind of questions ?
I think it's BABA JI who has found a computer finally
This one's the best
And what if you are a girl ?
This was a soft question
 
 
5 hours later…
11:55 AM
1
Q: What reputation is needed to flag as spam?

John RennieWe seem to be getting a rush of spam this morning. I see the spams quickly earn lots of downvotes but remain present. Since only 6 spam flags are required to delete the post I'm a bit surprised they manage to attract e.g. 10 downvotes without a corresponding number of spam flags. Maybe we should ...

 
 
1 hour later…
12:59 PM
Anyone: [M]aybe your states are “really” quantum mixed states whose density matrices just happen to be diagonal! What kind of system would that be?
 
1:52 PM
And really, there's no need to get worked up over a couple of downvotes.
 
2:21 PM
Hi I suppose this is a general chat so it's ok to ask a general question, if my question is sort of ignored, and I don't really know what's wrong with it and I'd be happy to fix it accordingly , would it be ok if I posted a link to the question here?
 
@Scis If that's a phrase, you can type it here..!
(well, you can do anything here) - go on...
 
@CrazyBuddy This: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63709 is my question and is something there wrong from a "guidelines for HW questions" perspective? thanks :)
 
@Scis nope there's nothing to worry about - if it had been a HW, it would've been closed already ;-)
some questions take a while to get a good answer :D
 
@CrazyBuddy oh ok then I was afraid that with all the spam there was some new "ignore bad questions, because we're so busy downvoting/deleting spam" policy thanks :)
 
 
1 hour later…
3:38 PM
Who, besides me, has seen these holographic road markings in bends?
 
?
no clue what you're talking about :S
 
Big red/white arrow-patterned sheets that "move with you".
 
nope
interesting concept though
 
Scares the shit out of you, the first time you see it.
4
Q: Is there a way to create a flickering frequency to be dependent on speed of the person looking at it?

Uri AbramsonIs there a way to make a screen or a road sign flash at different rates, depending on the velocity of the observer looking at it? I would like to achieve a state where two observers going at different speeds would see the screen flash at different rates at the same time. another thing i would ...

 
Brandon's solution is brilliant. My mind went "doppler effect" when I read the question
 
3:50 PM
But the OP now wants a little bit more (edited in).
 
@Gugg no compulsion to update the answer
 
@Gugg I think lenticular images are the way to go for the "flicker"
Q: How can I give drivers seizures on the road if they drive too fast?
Self-policing roadways ;-)
 
lol
 
@Gugg ah I see you beat me to the lenticular printing comment in on the main question. Now it looks like I copied you :-p
 
Imagine a tunnel covered with the sheets I just mentioned. You'd hallucinate.
You copied me.
 
3:56 PM
I had to enter so many different search terms into google before I found the name of that. I'd forgotten "lenticular" so I was proud of myself when I finally re-found it.
I've never seen holographic road markings / signs. Sounds dangerous.
 
Doesn't matter how proud you are. You still look like a bloody plagiarist. :)
I saw these things, but I can't find them on YouTube.
 
4:14 PM
@BrandonEnright What's your beef with aluminium?
 
4:26 PM
@ManishEarth I'm still struggling with this comment: [M]aybe your states are “really” quantum mixed states whose density matrices just happen to be diagonal! What do you make of that?
 
@Gugg <---- first year undergrad. I don't know what a density matrix is. Well, sort of. But not really.
Not even nearly enough to understand that comment. Especially without context.
Sorry :/
 
0
A: Determinism, classical probabilities, and/or quantum mechanics?

Gugg If one understands the 0-norm to be the intersection of the 1 and 2-norms, shouldn’t the trilemma really be the following (for any universe with very generic properties)? 1. Determinism, classical probabilities and quantum mechanics are all true. 2. Classical probabiliti...

 
I would ask @DavidZaslavsky about that.
 
@DavidZaslavsky I'm still struggling with this comment: [M]aybe your states are “really” quantum mixed states whose density matrices just happen to be diagonal! What do you make of that?
 
Or @Qmechanic, but he's not usually in this room
Or John Rennie
 
4:31 PM
I can't just ping them all, can I? Doesn't seem very nice.
 
@Gugg It probably wouldn't work in chat anyway
They need to have been in the room in the recent past
@Gugg Yep
I personally don't mind being infinitely pinged, but that's just me :P
 
Grr. Now every time the live refresh shows up a new question on Physics.SE, I go "Spam? Spam? Where?". Before seeing the question.
 
Sometimes on (dull) blogs, the comments are all spam. Which tells you, I think, that these are bots.
 
5:01 PM
@Qmechanic (Not sure if the ping works.) I'm still struggling with this comment: [M]aybe your states are “really” quantum mixed states whose density matrices just happen to be diagonal! What do you make of that? (See above for context. Earlier, I also pinged DavidZ.)
 
@Gugg Damn you brits and brit supporters with your messed up spellings :-p
Actually my edits were focused on replacing shiny in the title with reflective and I made the change to aluminium while I was at it. I didn't realize the brits spelled it wrong on purpose ;-)
 
LOL
@BrandonEnright I'm not native English speaking, but I would even think that you'd pronounce them differently.
 
Yeah they pronounce it incorrectly too.
@Gugg Your English is great. What's your native language?
 
Dutch.
 
007
@ManishEarth How the equations (like chem reactions are written)?
 
5:09 PM
We say aluminium, like the Brits.
 
007
$He--->He^+ + e^-$
doesn't give continuous line
 
There's a chem-package you might use. It's in some of my edits.
 
@007 \ce
 
@007 I'd do something like $\mathrm{He}\, \rightarrow\, \mathrm{He}^{\mathrm{+}}+e^{\mathrm{-}}$
 
4
Q: How can I format math/chemistry expressions here?

ManishEarthThis post is meant to teach new folks how to use MathJax and mhchem formatting on chem.SE

@BrandonEnright on Chem.SE the mhchem package is installed
 
007
5:11 PM
@ManishEarth was trying \chem
 
See here, for example.
 
007
@ManishEarth \ce not working...:(
 
@007 Look at my example.
 
@007 on Chem.SE only
 
When you use the require-thing, I think you're fine.
 
007
5:15 PM
I think \rightarrow should be used.
is there anything like \long ? that can be used in front of \rightarrow?
 
@007 I think \longrightarrow or something very similar to that is correct.
 
007
Yep worked
 
$\require{mhchem}\ce{_9^18F\longrightarrow_8^18O +e+ +{v}}$
 
Indeed $\longrightarrow$ is a -----> and $\Longrightarrow$ is a =====>
 
@007 mhchem is better than what you did, I think.
@ManishEarth Pinging doesn't seem to "work" as advertised. Nobody responds. :(
 
5:34 PM
Can anyone please suggest a book for classical mechanics(lagrangian and hamiltonian formalisms) that side by side deals with mathematics required for it ?
 
@nonagon Hmm, perhaps The Theoretical Minimum by Susskind and Hrabovsky?
 
Isn't it shallow ? I mean like Popular science books fact based types ?
 
It's literally the minimum of theory you need, including Lagrangians and Hamiltonians.
What are "fact based types"?
 
Kind of like some general relativity quantum mechanics books that tell you a story without going into much details about the subject
I tried reading Landau , but after 5-6 pages , it doesn't make much sense , also , I am not familiar with math upto that level .
 
I have read it (the Susskind book), and I didn't have that impression at all. But perhaps others can comment.
 
5:40 PM
Were you able to solve problems after that ?
Does the book have problems ?
 
Call me at +9145327894 and I will solve your problems.
2
 
HAHA .
So you are Babaji
 
The book has exercises.
 
And what was the math prerequisite ?
And were you able to actually solve problems after that or you just gained an idea about what Lagrangian is . Were you able to compute and solve problems of classical mechanics using Lagrangians ?
 
Not much math required. I think the book was developed on the basis of lectures for "continuing education": people who are retired or something and who like to learn physics, even if the last time they went to school was 40 years ago. It covers everything you need to know.
 
5:45 PM
I didn't like his lectures though .
And stuff like noether's theorem etc. are rigourously discussed ?
And how do you know someone is ol here ? , I mean users like Dr. David Zaslavsky never post ?
 
She's mentioned, but only once.
I can see five people here. David is sort of vague. I guess that means he's got a window open with this page.
 
and dmckee too , almost none of them reply , they are here but don't post :)
 
The book is not popular in the usual sense. I think one might really use it to build a good foundation.
Let's try.
 
It is costly here in my country compared to the education value it'll provide . So I am kind of reluctant to buy it .
 
@dmckee I'm still struggling with this comment: [M]aybe your states are “really” quantum mixed states whose density matrices just happen to be diagonal! What do you make of that?
 
5:53 PM
@Gugg I felt as if your text nodded :)
 
You mean your expected education value. I'm suggesting that you might up that a little.
 
I think susskind's book won't be worth the price it is being sold for in my country
Whereas a book like Goldstein/Landau are available for 1/3 of the price.
 
What is that price? And (for comparison), what is the price of a hamburger in your country?
 
There are no hamburgers here . Cows are considered somewhat holy here .
 
The Big Mac Index is published by The Economist as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and provides a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries. It "seeks to make exchange-rate theory a bit more digestible". The index takes its name from the Big Mac, a hamburger sold at McDonald's restaurants. Overview The Big Mac index was introduced in The Economist in September 1986 by Pam Woodall as a semi-humorous illustration and has been published by that paper annually since then. Th...
 
5:57 PM
@Gugg Where are you from ?
 
How about the chicken Maharaja Mac?
 
Yea , that is available for say < 2 American dollars
 
And the book?
 
Which one ? susskind ?
 
Yup
 
5:59 PM
=16 maharaja mac
Infact 17 .
You have chicken maharaja mac in your country ?
 
@Gugg You do realize that "mixed" or "pure" depends on the basis you examine it in, right? A state can be pure in one basis and mixed in another.
 
In that case, I'd go for the 17 chicken Maharaja Macs. Sounds delicious. :)
 
That's what makes neutrino mixing happen: the pure flavor states are mixed mass states and vice versa.
Certainly a pure state is a special case of a general state, but the importance is that it has special properties as long as you use that basis.
 
@dmckee Can you suggest a book ?
 
I don't really have a favorite for beginners. Can't even recall what I used in undergrad.
 
6:03 PM
You did maths first or side by side ?
 
@dmckee I thought that the mixed states were epistemic only. Does that make sense?
 
You only need linear algebra for QM (unless you want to do the Schrödinger picture, in which case you need differential equations, too).
 
@dmckee I was talking about Classical Mechanics
 
@Gugg They have experimentally observable consequences.
 
I'm sorry,... the universe can be in a mixed quantum state??
 
6:06 PM
@nonagon Unless you are the genius of the century you'll have to do classical mechanics two or three times to get good at it. What level are you at?
 
Done with newtonian mechanics at the level of Kleppner Kolenkow with problems . And all of general physics with problems from multiple sources . and theory upto level of Resnick Halliday Krane and ramamurti shankar's lectures and in mathematics calculus and vectors and apostol volume 1 . Pretty much told you everything I know . So , what next thing should I do ?
 
@Gugg Over significant distance and time scales things tend to be coherent, so it is difficult (well high impossible) to observe those consequences on large scales.
@nonagon I used Marion and Thorton at the upper division level. Found it to be just right at the time, though it can seem a little pedantic to me these days.
 
Is classical mechanics the next step or something else ?
Upper division level ?
 
@nonagon have you done an electromagnetism course yet?
 
You mean curl and all that or the level of Gauss law and Ampere's law etc . Faraday's law?
I have done upto level of gauss law ampere's faraday's etc. very thoroughly , but not done anything with vector calculus as such .
 
6:15 PM
@dmckee Isn't it sort of definitional that the universe is in some state, some pure state?
 
@nonagon I was thinking along the lines of ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/…
 
Yes this I have done very thoroughly . More than the level in these lectures , solved many problems as well .
You can assume physics background upto this oyc.yale.edu/physics Both of them .
 
When i was in school I followed a course like that with a special relativity and introduction to QM course
 
Its like I have to solve problems now for 2 years and its getting quite boring . So I need something to learn side by side which actually helps when I enter college after 2 years rather than just some mumbo-jumbo facts .
 
@nonagon You have surprised me. The first time I saw you (about two weeks ago), you were having trouble with a wedge and a sphere. Aren't you a tiny bit overconfident in your current capabilities?
 
6:27 PM
Basically it was a problem , I couldn't seem to figure out . And I posted it here . I was not understanding how ultimately something like constraints were being used in that problem and not angular momentum or linear momentum . Perhaps , if you could have read my comments in the fora to which I linked the question , you could have understood . (I have deleted most of those comments now) , the problem was more or less flawed /unclear .
Since the figure showed the sphere moved upwards whereas it should have moved along the incline . There were language ambiguities in the problem which I face a lot . Even today I faced one .
 
@nonagon my suggestion is that if you feel like you've mastered the material you've been working on to branch out to new areas. My vote would be for special relativity first since that will still make good use of your mechanics knowledge.
 
I did read the comments there and then.
 
@Brandon Books about classical mechanics deal with special relativity later too ? , I mean they deal after introducing Lagrangians etc . Some of them .
@Gugg Still you think I am being over confident ?
I mean I accept , I forget stuff within a certain span of time if I am not working it out , but being stuck on the same stuff whose concepts I think I understand and what I get now is in bits which I forget with time as those bits don't have wide applications is kind of making physics study dull for me , that is why I joined Physics SE
 
I didn't say you are overconfident. I only asked. You seem to know a lot about higher level stuff, which makes it surprising that you have trouble with lower level stuff, which usually is the foundation.
 
I don't know anything about higher level stuff
 
6:34 PM
Yes, you do.
 
But I don't see how not being able to solve a particular problem kind of makes you think that the person doesn't know anything at all .
 
@nonagon that's not how I read Gugg's comments. He didn't say that at all.
 
What I know ? Just names of those stuffs , nothing else . I don't even know what a Lagrangian is . except T-V but I don't know how to use it.
 
I never said that you don't know shit. You obviously do. :)
 
No I am not being offensive or anything . I am just saying that please don't judge me on the basis of that particular problem.
And just because you said , tell me what higher level stuff I knew ? :) ,
 
6:38 PM
You seem to know about EM.
 
@nonagon I used amazon.com/Modern-Physics-Raymond-Serway/dp/0534493394 for special relativity and QM. Although I have nothing to compare it against I thought the book was quite good. I learned a lot and was able to understand all of the material.
 
@Gugg I repeat, we can observe the consequences of bits of the universe failing to be in pure states. Asserting that there must be a definition to the effect that the universe is in a pure state smacks of philosophy to me. Or theology. The universe is what it is and we seek to describe it as it is, not to prescribe how it should be.
 
@dmckee Thanks! Really appreciate that comment. I'll take some time to digest that.
 
Can one do QM before classical mechanics ?
I mean at the level of using linear algebra and all that.
 
@nonagon You'd probably need linear algebra, but then: look at the slide here:
3
Q: Can the $0$-norm represent determinism?

GuggIn Scott Aaronson's Quantum Computing since Democritus, he presents classical probability theory as based on the $1$-norm, and QM as based on the $2$-norm. Call $\{v_1,\ldots,v_N\}$ a unit vector in the $p$-norm if $|v_1|^{\ p}+\cdots+|v_N|^{\ p}=1$ The slide below is from a presentation o...

 
6:47 PM
Yes ?
 
I don't understand. Yes, what?
 
I mean after looking at the slide which I don't understand .
 
Linear algebra is very useful. Did you learn that?
 
Yes .
 
That should enable you to understand the slide.
Well, I don't know for certain that's called linear algebra, but it is matrix theory.
 
6:52 PM
Can you be more straight in what you're trying to say
So matrix theory is important or knowing about linear transformations ?
A physics question now , does gallilean relativity principle state that anything you do in a frame with moving velocity , it is equivalent to doing it at rest .
?
 
@Gugg "linear algebra" sounds like the right term to me.
 
@nonagon That's not my department (either). Perhaps somebody else can comment.
@BrandonEnright I think you might do linear algebra without matrices. Not sure.
 
@Gugg my linear algebra class was very matrix heavy
 
?
Can you use gallilean relativity principle to obtain the answer here
 
@BrandonEnright Question: Why does it seem that physics can do with scalars, vectors and matrices. Why doesn't it need higher-dimensional objects? (BTW: That's a pure guess of mine.)
 
7:03 PM
@Gugg, It does. Have you heard of tensors?
 
Heard, but never gotten into them. Are they higher dimensional matrices?
 
Any comment on the problem ?
 
@Gugg I think thats an artifact of how we arrange the math. You can represent multidimensional stuff with just a vector. I'd invoke the "mathematical anthropic principle" and say that we don't use 3D matrices because we've arranged the math in such a way that we don't need them
 
@Brandon What about n-rank tensors which can be represented by n-D matrices?
 
@BrandonEnright That's one of those comments I'll store for later. Interesting.
 
7:05 PM
@jinawee I haven't been exposed to those
 
@ColinMcFaul Regarding that half-life question , I just used what Wikipedia said and it seemed plausible too .
 
@nonagon I'd say: a.
 
How ? Please tell .
 
@Brandon Well, you can generalise your notion of of vectors and matrices to tensors, which are basically just multilineal functions that go from n-vector spaces to a field (R or C).
 
@nonagon In stead of looking at velocity, look at distance travelled. The rope has a fixed length.
 
7:11 PM
The vertical block , I mean the one that is moving downwards is having horizontal velocity equal to the big block's velocity as well , since its velocity is given vertically downwards relative to the big block.
 
@nonagon What did I just say?
 
@nonagon That's not what Wikipedia says.
 
Half-life (t½) is the time required for a quantity to fall to half its value as measured at the beginning of the time period.
 
in exponential decay
See the subsection en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… for how it applies to that question.
 
@nonagon The picture isn't quite right. b doesn't fall downward, but rather down-right. The arrow is not quite right (or depicted relatively to block c.)
 
7:19 PM
The half-life mentioned in the question is the natural half-life of material X, not the half-life of the system as a whole.
 
@ColinMcFaul Sorry, which question is that?
 
@Gugg so ? none of the answers are correct ?
 
4
Q: Radioactive Decay

007 Problem:Nuclei of a radioactive element $\Bbb X$ having decay constant $\lambda$ , ( decays into another stable nuclei $\Bbb Y$ ) is being produced by some external process at a constant rate $\Lambda$.Calculate the number of nuclei of $\Bbb X$ and $\Bbb Y$ at $t_{1/2}$ I tried to create an...

 
@nonagon I'd still say a.
@ColinMcFaul I can't read that. The $\ln$s aren't upright. :)
 
@Gugg In that question about blocks , did you notice that velocities are relative to the big block ?
@ColinMcFaul then it would mean half-lives are defined exclusively for Exponential decays but there's no exponential decay in the question
Anyways I think its just a matter of convention rather than physical insight .
 
7:29 PM
@nonagon No, I didn't! I only looked at the picture. I change to b, if you don't mind. :)
 
Yes :) , I don't mind
 
Phew.
 
So my question was , I tried to argue with relativity principle that all inertial frames are equally good
 
@nonagon Yeah, you can't really define a half-life for a non-exponential system. Anything you tried would depend on the amount of material, and therefore on the time that the system has been running. We would prefer the half-life to be an inherent property of the material, so the conventional definition comes from the exponential decay situation.
 
And it seemed to work here , that I can assume the block to be at rest and then do the experiment w.r.t. block it would give same answer which convinced me for (b) , but I don't know if that reasoning is right .
@ColinMcFaul That is why I went to the basics for half-life . That how is half-life ultimately defined . It isn't defined as $\ln2/ lambda $ but when you have half of what you had in beginning . N I'd be grateful if you could take away the downvote now ? :)
 
7:35 PM
I think using terms like "relativity principle" here are very confusing. Why not stick with: the rope has a fixed length, and therefore the speeds of a and b with respect to c have to be equal?
 
Its better to have more than one reasoning .
 
Certainly not.
 
And I am still skeptical about my answer since everybody else said it was (a) .
Even the book :)
 
@nonagon No, because what you said is still incorrect, and it gives the wrong answer.
 
@ColinMcFaul How ?
 
7:38 PM
Half-life is the time to decay to half the material for an exponential decay. From that, you can derive that the half-life is ln(2)/lambda. So that is the half-life of a material.
 
Ok
 
anything else would be ill-defined for that question.
 
Alright
@ColinMcFaul Can you please have a look here artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=513&t=529662
 
@nonagon I would think that the text prevails over the picture. Therefore b.
 
Is that what you and @Gugg are discussing?
 
7:41 PM
@ColinMcFaul Yes
 
@ColinMcFaul Sorry, higher level stuff. :)
 
@Gugg haha
 
@ColinMcFaul You think (a) is correct ? Kindly notice the text too .
And can one use the fact that all inertial frames are equal . So assuming you are on the block you think you are at rest and then conclude answer should be (b) , otherwise , it violates the relativity principle that you can't know you're moving with constt. velocity . Is this reasoning plausible here ?
 
I'm trying to think about it. I'm also finding the text confusing.
 
7:44 PM
@nonagon Don't use difficult terms when you don't need them.
 
Ok, i have the problem parsed now.
And yeah, if you're trying to use SR on this, you're probably thinking too hard.
The way I read that problem, all observers will agree that (b) is correct.
And i think the text agrees with the picture.
If you're standing on the ground, you see block c moving at v0, and block a moving at v0 + v1
 
No, the text doesn't agree with the picture.
 
how does it not?
At first glance, the picture looks like it's saying that v1 is relative to the ground, but it's consistent with being v1 relative to block c.
 
The picture suggests that $v_0$ and $v_1$ are both with respect to the ground.
 
It does suggest that, but it's also consistent with the other interpretation.
 
7:52 PM
No way about it (Whitney Houston).
 
If you use the picture to say that v0 and v1 are both with respect to the ground, then all observers agree that the answer is (c).
 
c? I didn't even look at c!
 
An observer on the ground would see block a moving with v1. An observer on block c would see block a moving with v0-v1.
@Gugg Oh wait, maybe I flipped a sign in my head.
 
Yes, maybe. It looked kind of weird.
 
My internet got Disconnected
So answer is B only ?
 
7:57 PM
Translate that to English, please.
 
And one can use relativity principle here or not ? , I just like to know as it'd save me time dealing with such problems later ?. I worked out the problem using constant string length but relativity principle would have saved me time :) .
 
Why not throw in some quantum mechanics, while you're at it?
 
@nonagon You wouldn't want to. My guess is that this is early enough in the course that SR isn't relevant
 
But it will always give correct answer ?
The fact that all inertial frames are equal in each and every respect w.r.t. even this question
 
I'm using Galilean relativity to help clarify what each block is seeing.
 
7:59 PM
Obviously, this is string theory.
2
 
How could I have not starred this one ? You are something else really
 
@nonagon Yes, you could solve this from any (inertial) reference frame you wanted.
You would want to translate all the speeds into that referenc frame first, though.
 
And the reasoning that if we assume the big block to be at rest . Then too answer should remain same
And yes one can confirm the answer is b with this
since nothing is given about big block's velocity , means it can be 0 also
And the correct answer will remain correct .
 
@nonagon Yes, that's correct.
Yeah, I flipped a sign. If you want to say that v1 is relative to the ground, then v2 = v1-v0, which gives you (d).
 
@Gugg I am still laughing at , this is string theory . Did you say it by mistake or you referred to the string in the question ?
 
8:04 PM
What do you think?
 
@Colin No if v1 is relative to the ground then answer is a and v2 is w.r.t. block still
 
We're not morons all the time.
 
If A is traveling at v1 relative to the ground, then it's traveling at v1-v0 relative to C, and thus relative to the pulley. So v2 = v1-v0.
And you're right, that rearranges into (a)
 
String theory is a physical theory that extends particle physics by replacing point particles by extended objects called strings. In string theory, the different types of observed elementary particles arise from the different quantum states of these strings. In addition to the types of particles postulated by the standard model of particle physics, string theory naturally incorporates gravity, and is therefore a candidate for a theory of everything, a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. Aside from this hypothesized role in particl...
 
k bye , I really had a good time here today
 
8:10 PM
hi, I was wandering about something I've seen several times in my electromagnetism course and I was wandering whether I can turn it into a thumb rule, care to tell me how silly it sounds ?
 
@nonagon That's such a typical response to string theory.
 
@Scis What ?
@Gugg how to ping someone ?
 
Like that.
 
@nonagon YAY! Is putting anything with a charge/or possibly polirized above a grounded "infinite" surface makes the surface mirror the real object (I'm referring to "Method of image charges") ?
 
I don't get you
You can learn about Image charges here youtube.com/watch?v=FLzJ2_DfNX0&list=ECD07B2225BB40E582. And the next video.
 
8:16 PM
@nonagon well if put a point charge q at a distance d from a large grounded(conductive) surface the potential above the surface is as if we had a -q at -d
 
Well folks, the gauntlet has been thrown. Our honor is at stake.
2
-2
Q: Neutron decay and bet on the honor of physicists

Johannes FrankAs part of a bet which arose from a discussion between a friend of mine (physicist) and me (electrical engineer) I betted against him, I could easily find a simple question that doesn't involve more than first glance wikipedia statements that he and even most physicist couldn't answer, because ph...

 
This is SPARTA .
 
@BrandonEnright I didn't quite read that, but up voted anyway. (Why does my spelling checker make that into two words?)
 
@Gugg was my question too much of a gibberish ?
 
@Scis I didn't read your question.
 
8:28 PM
@Gugg oh ok :)
 
 
1 hour later…
9:39 PM
Per this comment mentioning the "over unity community"
-1
A: If we charge a capacitor can we discharge it into a battery?

eddythier is battery regenerator out thier that uses a colapsing inductive field to gen erate voltage that charges a cap that then dumps into a a wet cell. See Bedini. theses regenerators are used to desulfate abused wet cells and are quite well established ESPECAILLY with the over unity people ...

Based on youtube views of the huge number of "free energy" and "over unity" I'd say we're in the minority here on this site!
 
 
1 hour later…
10:56 PM
0
Q: Should I accept an answer that merely includes a link to a source for the (exact and detailed) solution?

MonopoleWhen an answer provides a link to a document , website , etc. that includes a complete and exact treatment of the problem, but the answer itself has nothing in it's body (just the link), should I accept it? As an example , see this.

 

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