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dmckee
dmckee
2:54 AM
@Arafat I've been told by people who ought to know that it is very hard---perhaps impossible---to identify a photon with a packet of classical EM waves.
 
 
3 hours later…
Brandon Enright
Brandon Enright
5:57 AM
Looks like @JohnRennie will cross 100k rep tomorrow. Crazy!
 
John Rennie
John Rennie
6:18 AM
@BrandonEnright: there haven't been that many really interesting questions recently. Well, not really interesting to me. Maybe when the universities restart we'll get a bit more activity.
 
Brandon Enright
Brandon Enright
@JohnRennie I've felt like there has been a decrease in interesting questions too but I attributed that to my own knowledge growth.
 
 
4 hours later…
Arafat
Arafat
10:44 AM
@dmckee you are saying that photon is not a packet of classical EM waves. If photon is a packet of probability wave are those probability waves emitted from accelerated charged particle?
Please give me any physics stackexchange link if any or any external link.
 
ACuriousMind
ACuriousMind
@Arafat What do you mean, "packet of probability wave"? To every particle you can associate some "wave function" representing its probability to be found in an extent of space by projecting it onto the position basis of the Hilbert space - but that doesn't mean that the particle "is a packet of probability waves".
(On a related note: Has anyone else grown to hate the term wavefunction because it always makes people think of actual waves?)
 
Danu
Danu
11:28 AM
@JohnRennie @BrandonEnright I feel the same way, although the rise of Floris and his everyday-physics magic is quite cool
@ACuriousMind Yes! I also have a sneaking suspicion that this enormous confusion about measurement etc. is mainly due to that damned wave picture.... or perhaps I'm wrong.
 
Arafat
Arafat
12:07 PM
By "packet of probability wave" I mean two or more probability waves superimposed to form packets of wave. @ACuriousMind
@ACuriousMind I asked it earlier:

Photons can be considered as a wave packet. A wave packet is superposition of two or several waves. Are these waves physical wave or they are probability wave?
If they are probability waves, can we conclude that charges create fields which are in some sense probabilistic?
 
Physics Meta
Physics Meta
12:52 PM
0
Q: Can't close question with open bounty?

Olin LathropI just tried to vote to close the question How to measure the energy consumption class of a home appliance? because it is squarely about engineering and not about physics. However, it told me something like "questions with open bounties can't be closed". That seems like a odd rule. A bounty do...

discussion
 
 
3 hours later…
David Z
David Z
4:01 PM
Chat session time! Anyone here?
 
Bob
Bob
hii
@DavidZ
 
Danu
Danu
Hi
not too much to talk about really
I was thinking of making a follow-up to my fairly succesful meta post
 
David Z
David Z
yeah
 
Danu
Danu
trying to flesh out the details (community wiki or not etc)
 
David Z
David Z
There is that one featured meta post about whatever it was
 
Bob
Bob
4:04 PM
i want to take some suggestions
 
David Z
David Z
12
Q: Closing "Insufficient Effort" questions

Kyle KanosSome time ago, John Rennie asked, ...in many cases it looks as if the OP simply can't be bothered to put any effort in. Do we have a policy for closing (or not closing) such questions? The Meta question has received not a downvote (12/0 at time of writing). The answer by Ben Crowell says (e...

discussion featured vote-to-close
@Danu I only really suggest making things CW when you really want them to be collaborative
 
Danu
Danu
@DavidZ I think everybody agrees that the best policy here is downvote+comment
 
Bob
Bob
@DavidZ
 
David Z
David Z
Seems so
 
Danu
Danu
@DavidZ I'm still debating whether CW is a good idea
 
David Z
David Z
4:08 PM
@Bob what were you looking for in particular?
 
Bob
Bob
i am an undergrad and currently having a course in classical mechanics
 
Danu
Danu
There were also some other issues about which topics we pick etc etc, but i'll think about it more later
 
Bob
Bob
and i want to study this topic in deep...
so what can i do to cover most of the topic during this semester...
@DavidZ
 
David Z
David Z
You could take a look at our book recommendation question on classical mechanics
and that might give you some sources to continue with
 
Bob
Bob
@DavidZ
i am following goldstein for now which will be the next level
 
David Z
David Z
4:21 PM
Yeah that's generally thought of as a fairly good one
 
Danu
Danu
oh man oh man I might finally hit the rep cap for once :D :D :D
 
Phonon
Phonon
haha
gratz
 
Danu
Danu
4:37 PM
at 190 now, should be possible to get 1-2 more :D
 
David Z
David Z
anyway I guess we can let the chat session trail off for today and reconvene in two weeks
 
Danu
Danu
Yes :)
 
hwlau
hwlau
@Danu Now you hit it :)
 
Danu
Danu
Ole! My first time :D
 
Phonon
Phonon
hehe
 
ACuriousMind
ACuriousMind
4:59 PM
Here I was, thinking how many pages of chat session I would have to read, and it's just this? Also, congrats to the Mortarboard @Danu.
Why is that badge called Mortarboard, anyway?
 
Phonon
Phonon
@ACuriousMind probably best question so far today :D
 
Danu
Danu
5:18 PM
@ACuriousMind the mortarboard is the thing you wear on your head whn you graduate, a.k.a. the graduate cap (har har har)
 
ACuriousMind
ACuriousMind
@Danu Ahhh...that makes a bit of sense, considering the...punny nature of many badges. ;) I only found the literal translation of mortarboard to German, which is exactly equivalent to a board for mortar, and made no sense at all.
 
Danu
Danu
It's what the cap looks ilke :)
@ACuriousMind do you know any reason why a separable space deserves that name?
 
ACuriousMind
ACuriousMind
5:34 PM
@Danu Good question! Answers are here
..and here
There's a lot of French there (which I cannot understand), but it seems even the mathematicians are a bit confused on why especially those spaces are called seperable.
It might also have something to do with the Kolmogorov quotient dividing out "non-separable points" producing a $T_0$ space whose square-integrable functions are actually a Hilbert space one would want to look at
 
Danu
Danu
5:54 PM
I can read the french, @ACuriousMind, thanks :D
it's basically just a shitty name :)
 
Jim
Jim
@Danu everything has to be called something
Would a rose by any other identifier not stimulate a similarly pleasant olfactory response?
 
Danu
Danu
I mean... 'densely countable' would've done just fine
 
Jim
Jim
As a name for a rose? That would be terrible! It's not fine at all
 
Danu
Danu
Hah :)
 
Jim
Jim
Densely countables are red, violets are blue.....
 
Danu
Danu
6:08 PM
whatever happens, I won't separate you
 
Physics Meta
Physics Meta
0
Q: Why wasn't this question moved or put on hold?

SchlomoI know this might be unusual since people usually ask the opposite question, but I simply have to ask this. It's about this question: Can a "superhuman" move so fast as to be invisible? I really think that this question belongs on http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/ (maybe http://biology.stackexch...

discussion
 
 
4 hours later…
Physics Meta
Physics Meta
10:37 PM
0
Q: Bad Question Warning

deepI was about to ask a question on the website today when I saw a message saying: "Wait! Some of your past questions have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from asking any more." However, I have only ever asked 2 questions, one with 3 upvotes and one with 4.

discussion
 

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