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00:04
@ACuriousMind :(
00:32
@0celo7 I think someone got carried away. Not that the problem is conceptually difficult, but there is a lot of algebraic complexity for no real purpose.
Ugh, sorry I missed the chat session. Blame the great firewall.
 
1 hour later…
01:42
Sup y'all
@0celo7 whatchu been listening to lately?
Defqon.1 2015
Got an iTunes gift card for my Bday, time to expand the collection
Waiting for an album by Radical Redemption (raw hardstyle) and Bassleader 2015 (hard dance festival)
02:24
@0celo7 Peace; we all have hot buttons, as I also just demonstrated. I hope everyone can get back to physics, and I respect and appreciate your clear desire to do so.
Hi @DavidZ, hope you are well. Goodnight all, it's late here...
@ACuriousMind I'd appreciate a hint for the problem on the top of page 225 if you don't mind.
@ACuriousMind symplectic and complex = orthogonal I have
03:00
@ACuriousMind Well, I somehow proved all 3 equalities there :)
@ACuriousMind I don't see how these intersections are unitary though...
@ACuriousMind Just ignore all of that, I get it
 
3 hours later…
06:02
What can I do with $[r^{-1},r^{-1}q_j]$?
Ahhh wait I think I have it
 
3 hours later…
08:46
Back to the future day is today
https://www.facebook.com/uniladmag/videos/1842522722437445/

Everything except time travel
"Cristy Elizabeth Caplan It didn't come true. It was made true.
Like · Reply · 4 · 11 hours ago"

This is why I like scifi
This is, aruguably why I study physics: To make the scifi real whenever possible
09:06
I would definitely argue that reason.
Nature is not fictitious.
Well, the fact is, nature has a lot more things better than scifi. For example, anyone think about metamaterials like 20 years ago?
09:40
(cont., philosophical) And this is why some said me studying physics is a conspiracy, or a lie, because my passion on physics is not as selfless as for chemistry
One could say I have an agenda on studying physics: and that agenda is $Re(scifi)\neq 0$
10:12
Any bibliography-minded folks around?
I'm trying to track down
Never mind :)
It seems there's two different Ann. Phys.
10:46
NbCeID 20
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151019122240.htm

New photonics in town, zero refractive index and constant waves
NbCeID 21
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151013103227.htm

glueglue->glueglue
glueglueglueglue
gleuglueglueglueglueglue...
11:06
what
glueballs, that's what
and then metamaterials
I wonder what's the decay of glueballs
Let's see
Meson pairs
Figures
always check the journal articles whenever you see a particle physics news item, because the media is often very bad at presenting it properly
I basically don't read science journalism anymore
? that's strange, I thought they are often reliable enough
11:32
Eh.
Have you ever read a newspaper article on a topic that you actually knew well and thought "This is exactly how things are"
11:43
O sorry, I thought you mean you don't read journal articles anymore
as in academic journals
@Slereah My new avatar is pretty classy
it is
For me, I still read science magazines to catch up on science outside my speciality, but will dig further into the journal articles whenever the context is oversimplified
What relations does one have for $[r^{-1},r^{-1}q_j]$?
I am trying to prove some identities in regards to the Hamiltonian of the non-relativistic hydrogen atom
(Just to learn how to manipulate the math)
12:00
0?
Coordinates commute with themselves
$[f(x), g(x)] = 0$
I wasn't sure how to treat that, since $[r^2,q_j]=0$ surely, but then for $r$ I have a sqrt and then for $1/r$ I have 1/sqrt
You can expand them as Taylor series, if you wish
Oh I haven't seen that before, what is that called?
And $[x^n, x^m] = 0$
That's true
What is a good resource to read more about this exact topic?
12:03
I mean at its core $f(\hat x) \psi = f(x) \psi$
And since c-numbers commute, functions of the position will always commute
I am a math student, I think this is physics notation so I am confused
Well math-wise it's operators on a Hilbert space
So why does $[r^{-1},r^{-1}q_j]=0$ mathematically?
and commutators are a type of lie algebra
Commutators aren't a type of lie algebra haha, I know that much
12:06
Well the easiest way to see it is to apply it to a Hilbert space vector
Wait
In that case I don't even think that's necessary
The commutator is linear
You can get $q_j$ out
I only have seen $r^2$ defined as $r^2=q_1^2+q_2^2+q_3^2$
And an operator always commute with itself
@GaloisintheField really? that's how my quantum course taught us and I also worked with one of my peers and the commmutator satisfy the cyclic rule and other properties of lie algebra
That's not what I meant sorry, I just meant that you are talking about the Lie algebra of the associative algebra, which has the Lie bracket being the commutator
So commutators aren't a type of lie algebra per say, but they are a valid choice of bracket
I see...
12:10
Sorry to be pedantic
Commutators are just defined as $[\hat A, \hat B] \psi = \hat A \hat B \psi - \hat B \hat A \psi $
Wait so the bracket does represent the standard commutator bracket
Well I assume, I don't know what you're working on
Hydrogen atom is probably commutator, yes
I had the result $[p_j,r^n] = -inr^{n-2} q_j$
Would you expect that from the commutator?
Sounds about right
12:13
Oh, great!
(if you set $\hbar = 1$)
Thanks, I wasn't sure how that was formed, so I assumed it was some strange bracket
@Slereah Why does $p_jr^n - r^np_j = -inr^{n-2}q_j$ (if it isn't a pain to explain)
@Secret Sorry I just saw it like saying multiplication is a group, but without specifying the set its applied, it isn't really
The easiest way to deal with it really is to put the operators in their usual form in QM
$\hat p_i = \partial_{x_i}$
Then you just have to compute $\partial_x (r^n \psi) - r^n \partial_x \psi$
12:21
$\partial_x = \frac{\partial}{\partial x}$?
ahhh don't worry, I will have to read more, otherwise I'll just keep asking dumb questions probably
I'll tell you when I work it out what I worked out
@GaloisintheField yes
For reference, I tend to ask a lot of dumb questions, lol
Basically there's two ways to deal with QM, mainly
@Secret Me too
Either the Schrödinger way, where you just solve differential equations on a wavefunctions
or the Heisenberg way, in a more abstract manner, with operators on a Hilbert space
Both methods are equivalent
But Schrodinger is a bit easier to get into
12:26
I usually prefer matrix methods
because it is a lot more "chunky"
i.e. one step at a time
What?
@Slereah who's the guy in my avatar again?
One of the heir of the throne of the Byzantine empire
Bow down, female dogs
da raiders bow to nobody
boy
So that's why they suck
12:31
:P
Dude the Skins are gonna die
D:
12:49
@Slereah what football team do you support
2
Q: Why does the Palatini formalism of GR works?

dwfaWe can get Einstein field equations of GR via two distinct methods: by taking the metric as the only degree of freedom, and imposing right away that the connection is the levi-civitta one. In that case the lagrangian will be a functional only of the metric; or we can follow the Palatini methods: ...

@Slereah
I don't know the answer D:
I thought it was just a coincidence...maybe I should read that section in Straumann
Huh, he doesn't cover that formalism
I guess that's why I don't remember reading it
@foobarrr a response like that is a very good way to drive people away from helping with your question — David Z ♦ 1 hour ago
I wonder what was said there...
@0celo7 Y'know, when you think a question is good, you could edit it to make it more readable and correct spelling/grammar :P
@ACuriousMind People should do this more often.
@ACuriousMind Didn't notice anything wrong with it.
@0celo7 Look at the title, for starters: "Why does the Palatini formalism works?"
"Levi-Civitta"
13:02
this sounds like someone destined for blogs and amazon self-published books. — casey Oct 16 at 0:14
He's probably a non-native speaker.
Hmm... :P
Lol
@0celo7 That is a reason not to hold that against OP, not a reason to not correct it.
:P
btw have you guys seen the new "highlights" option at the top of the chat page?
13:15
@skillpatrol Yeah. Not sure how it chooses those
by starred comments
@skillpatrol Nope, it gives me a lot of conversation snippets where there's no star in sight
really?
$[p_i^2,r^{-1}q_j]$, what about that @Slereah
13:17
the center comment should be starred :-/
What can I do with this?
@GaloisintheField Use $[ab,c] = a[b,c] + [a,c]b$.
Ahh yes of course, thank you
This is precisely why I am playing around with the identities xD, I don't see these things automatically yet
@skillpatrol No, doesn't look like it.
@ACuriousMind The reason I didn't correct it is I didn't notice anything wrong with it.
13:35
@DavidZ I have read your comment and the link in the helpcentre you sent me. I think I used a completely mainstream definition of time and have not asked to evaluate anything outside of the context of mainstream physics. I do not understand why the question is closed, is it possible for you to re-evaluate the question?
@David the question was: is time related to motion. (about what would happen with time if motion would stop)
link please
Poor TA, doing Gram-Schmidt in 4 dimensions
Probably means we're gonna have to do that on a quiz or test. Fun.
@St.ClairBij Your question does not make sense. What does "Suppose all matter stopped motion" mean? How is this different from just stopping time, and how do you deduce that time is derived from motion and not motion from time?
@ACuriousMind Brick walls stop motion.
I don't see the issue.
14:04
@ACuriousMind Have you read the first two parts of the question though? It is exactly that it does not differ from stopping time, which is the point. If a particular aspect of motion does not differ from time, what does it mean when you say time is dependent upon the speed of light. Time as such is a more vague concept than motion.
@St.ClairBij Oh, you're mixing up different physical pictures here. "Time", as one particular dimension, exists only in classical non-relativistic mechanics. There time and motion are pretty much the same, and time does not "depend on the speed of light".
But in relativity, there is no unique time direction, and motion is described as worldlines in spacetime which each have their own proper time. If you extend those proper times to coordinate systems, you find that the directions of the proper times of different worldlines do not agree.
And time is not a "vague concept". It's a dimension of spacetime, and it gives robust, quantitative predictions.
@ACuriousMind that's pretty interesting. (And like the answer I was looking for). But what do you mean by: there is no unique time direction? (is this empirically verifiable?) Or stated differently: what does no unique time direction mean?
@St.ClairBij (Special) relativity is invariant under the Lorentz transformations, which mix the former time and space directions. The phenomena of length contraction and time dilation are consequences of the fact that the time axes in two inertial coordinate systems related by a Lorentz transformation are not the same.
(And yes, time dilation is empirically tested)
@ACuriousMind Is time dilation the same as a different direction in time? (Does dilation change direction)
@St.ClairBij Time dilation means that observers that move at different speeds will not agree on the time it takes one of them to get from one place to another (and neither will they agree on the distance traveled because of length contraction). You may interpret this as both of them using time-space directions that are rotated with respect to each other.
You should go and learn about special and general relativity in detail before you try to ask questions about time again, I think.
14:18
@ACuriousMind In terms of vectors: not only the magnitude but also the direction of time changes?
@ACuriousMind so like 4 velocities of each observer are rotations of each other?
@St.ClairBij The two observers between which time dilation occurs would not agree on the "direction" of time, no.
You got a nice bunch of bonus votes due to my bounty @ACuriousMind :D
@Danu That's the power of bounties :)
14:20
@ACuriousMind (in terms of vectors: not only the magnitude but also the direction of the vector changes for the observers?)
Is there something I am missing, I have a discrepancy, but perhaps they are equivalent for reasons I can't see:

Should equal: $\frac{i}{\mu}r^{-3} p_mq_mq_j - \frac3\mu r^{-3}q_j - \frac{i}{\mu}r^{-1}p_j$

I obtained: $\frac{1}{2\mu}\left( p_mir^{-3}q_mq_j+ ir^{-3}q_mp_mq_j\right) $
(einstein summation)
@St.ClairBij Well, the total magnitude of the four-vector containing position and momentum doesn't actually change - what changes is the coordinate system its components are interpreted in.
An analogy: Let's say you look at a line and say it's 1m in the x-direction and 1m in the y-direction. Someone else stands at an 45° angle and says it's sqrt(2)m in the x-direction and 0m in the y-direction. Because you have different notions of "x-direction" and "y-direction", the other person is experiencing "x-dilation" and "y-contraction".
So the first term is equivalent other than a factor of $\frac12$ but the other two seem just plain wrong
@GaloisintheField Did you try moving the $q$ past the $p$ in your second summand?
They don't commute(in the multiplicative sense) do they?
14:27
@ACuriousMind ok, the reason i asked about direction of time is also because this way of thinking leads people to think "time travel" would be possible. (manipulating the direction of time) This to me would be in direct contradiction to realistic physics. But thanks for the info A curious mind
@GaloisintheField Exactly. I meant like: $qp = [q,p] + pq$
@ACuriousMind Ahh that's clever, hopefully it remedies my problem
I'll give it a shott
If my memory serves, Lorentz transformation cannot flip any future directing timelike 4 vector to point in the past direction, so you cannot time travel via boosting to a different frame
@Secret The non-orthochronous transformations can flip the time direction.
but are those physical?
14:31
I don't know what that means.
@ACuriousMind It literally just flipped them(which is cool because the bracket went to $0$) but it didn't remedy the difference, I guess I worked it out wrong
I understood the orthochronous ones corresponds to an observer boosting to another frame by travelling at a different velocity wrt some observer in the rest frame, but how can an observer do a non orthochrnous transformation?
@Secret Ah. Yes, the time flip is not a boost transformation.
So, in usual Minkowski space, you cannot flip time just by accelerating.
how does non orthochrnous transformation went into play if an observer cannot perform something to do the transformation, is it only a geometric thing telling how the observers are related but does not correspond to a physical process that can carry it out?
@Secret THe Lorentz transformations are just the transformations preserving the Minkowski metric. They do not come with a relation to "observers" a priori.
Why "petrol", @skullpetrol?
14:39
Fuel for thought :-)
@ACuriousMind Oh that bracket didn't go to zero, oops $[q_i,q_k]=0$ and same for $p$, but that bracket goes to something else
I see. When do we need to care about the non orthochronous transformation when we investigate GR problems? I.e. when are they play important role and what kind of role they play?
@Secret Uh, you don't need to especially "care" about them, I think. But, they're there.
Does $[r^{-1},q_j]=0$ and $[r^{-1},r^{-1}]q_j=0$, more to the point does $[r^n,q_j]=0$ and/or $[r^n,r^k]=0$?
14:48
@ACuriousMind is it possible in Minkowski space to flip time at all? Or is there some other "space system" where such an operation would be allowed. (And does such a system have a physical analogue)
I'm still not entirely sure if I am working with the commutator bracket since I can't derive any of the results that come out of the bracket exclusively
if $r^n$ commutes in the multiplicative sense with $q_j$, and I am using the commutator bracket, my question above follows immediately
Do you want to reverse cause and effect? @St.ClairBij
@St.ClairBij Actual time travel is impossible in Minkowski space. There exist spacetimes in general relativity though where all sorts of weird things can happen. Those are hoped to be unphysical, but there is hitherto no a priori reason to exclude them from the allowed solutions of Einstein's equations.
@GaloisintheField Are you doing classical Hamiltonian mechanics or quantum mechanics, i.e. is that the Poisson bracket or the commutator of operators?
The Godel metric contains CTCs, where time can loop back for some worldlines. The light cones in this metric are basically twisted so they joined back to back
@ACuriousMind That's part of my confusion, I am in quantum mechanics
14:50
but there is no evidence for their existence
@GaloisintheField Okay, so you know $[q_i,p_j] = \delta_{ij}$, right?
@ACuriousMind $\times i$?
Ah, yes
Damn $\mathrm{i}$.
All commutators between operators corresponding to functions of $q$ and $p$ (like $r$) can be deduced from that commutation relation.
@skullpetrol yeah lol... it seems to me some physicists have smoked too much weed. (And the definition of time as it stands now is the cause for it. (is my hypothesis).
The consensus for solutions in GR that allow CTCs are often the "you cannot change the past" type, thus it does not allow inconsistent <I forgot the term> like the grandfather paradox to happen
14:53
@ACuriousMind My confusion stemmed from $r^{-1} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{q_1^2+q_2^2+q_3^2}}$ and hence I couldn't use that commutation relation
@GaloisintheField Yeah, strictly speaking, that is not an admissible operator.
@ACuriousMind you need to care about them if you're interested in CPT, IIRC
$r^{-1}$ is just not defined in the algebra of operators. You can define $r^2 = \sum_i q_i^2$.
I am trying to show some identity they have listed holds which has RHS:

$$[H,r^{-1}q_j]$$ Where $H$ is the hamiltonian of the non-relativistic hydrogen atom
@GaloisintheField As I said, that is, strictly speaking, nonsense. The operator $r^{-1}$ does not exist, or at least you can't simply write it down and claim it exists.
Since $r^2$ is Hermitian, one can define the square root $r$, but it is not guaranteed at all that $r$ is invertible, and since $0$ is an allowed position, I'm pretty sure it is not invertible.
14:58
Well that's unfortunate :(
Yeah, physicists are sometime pretty bad at this operator business :P
I spent an hour manipulating nonsense HAHA
I guess I learned methods so that's really what I wanted haha
If we're doing ill-defined things anyway, we could write $r^{-1}q_j = \partial_j r$ and compute $[H,r]$, then symbolically differentiate w.r.t $q_j$ to get the result.
Specifically I was trying to get:

$$\left[\frac{p^2}{2\mu} - Ze^2r^{-1}, r^{-1}q_j\right]=\frac{i}{\mu}r^{-3} p_mq_mq_j - \frac{3}{\mu}r^{-3} q_j - \frac{i}{\mu} r^{-1}p_j$$
@ACuriousMind I mean I can try that, but I haven't done this before(or seen it in the notes)
Hm, I'm trying to recall how we did this back in the day
15:03
@ACuriousMind Have you done this explicit problem(or something similar)
@GaloisintheField I'm pretty certain I've done stuff like that for the hydrogen atom.
@GaloisintheField Hm, we never treated this in the abstract operator formalism. If you just stay on wavefunctions $L^2(\mathbb{R}^3)$, you just solve differential equations and never have to worry about such commutators.
@ACuriousMind $L^2$ refers to $L-p$ space?
@ACuriousMind whatever happened with your QCD code
@ACuriousMind Well thanks, I'll tell you if I get it(unfortunately I am an algebra student ahaha)
@ACuriousMind yessss
Wave mechanics is the best!
15:10
@GaloisintheField Yeah. There's some subtleties because they're not all differentiable and so on but at least the $\Delta + r^{-1}$ is a good differential operator. The abstract $r^{-1}$ just doesn't exist.
@0celo7 I thought I'd told you that I didn't find the error?
It does say at one point in the notes: take positive definite square root, call it $r$, assume $r^{-1}$ exists
@0celo7 For actually solving stuff it is! I just don't like it if it is used as the conceptual starting point.
@ACuriousMind D:
you broke QCD
nobel when?
@0celo7 Nah, alarge found that other simulation that also didn't see anything, and I found another. It seems the simulation just isn't as easy as people claim it is.
@St.ClairBij Nothing about the question has changed that would affect my decision. Very little about your question is mainstream.
15:13
@GaloisintheField Yeah, you can't assume that when $r$ has an eigenvalue of 0.
@ACuriousMind stupid question: why not just invert $r$ on the space where it has nonzero eigenvalues
@0celo7 Well, you can do that. But then it's not defined on your whole space. Additionally, you get that issue that the eigenvectors of the position operators aren't actual memeber of the Hilbert space. It is not clear to me how the actual prescription to invert the operator has to look.
@GaloisintheField: Do your notes at least have an instruction what something like $[r^{-1},p_i]$ is and how to compute it?
Have finished reading the paper referred by Slereah but cannot get back to it yet, not before I finish the data analysis of some spectroscopy thing
@ACuriousMind Different notes from 2 years ago have a little thing on it
The hint just has an arrow to $[L_j,H]=0$
Where $L_j$ is a basis element of an $o(3)$-module
'quantum hamiltonian has o(3)-symmetry'
I don't think one can determine $[r,p_i]$ from just $[r,q_i] = 0$.
15:23
I wonder what spot on earth has the lowest gravity
I guess some mountain top near the equator
@Slereah Some area that has a giant void underneath it iirc
neat
5
Q: Lowest gravity on Earth's surface?

dotancohenI am trying to determine which on Earth's surface has the lowest gravity. Googling is not finding anything concrete. My natural inclination would be to think of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, being on the equator (centripetal force) and also being the furthest point from the Earth's center. However...

$[r,p]$ can only be determined either by definition or by saying what the operators are
However, I think that $[r,p_i] = \mathrm{i}r^{-1}q_i$
15:25
or by a quantization procedure
@Slereah They explicitly say to treat $r$ as independent from the coordinate operators.
Like $\{r, p\} \rightarrow \frac {i}{\hbar} [r,p]$
So no quantization, although that's just what I did to get my guess.
I have to go now, I'll work it out tomorrow I imagine and let you know what I did haha
15:26
What definitions do we have?
Thanks for your thoughts!
I think I get it
Hm, no.
15:44
@ACuriousMind Unfortunately, I still don't see why GL(n,C) is the group that preserves the complex structure.
And I'm not sure why GL(n,C)=GL(n,R)xGL(n,R)
15:58
@0celo7 Every complex matrix in $\mathrm{GL}(n,\mathbb{C})$ with entries $a_{ij}+\mathrm{i}b_{ij}$ corresponds to two matrices in $\mathrm{GL}(n,\mathbb{R})$ with entries $a_{ij}$ and $b_{ij}$.
As for why those are those are those who preserve the complex structure, just write the complex structure as $\left(\begin{matrix}0 & -E_n \\ E_n & 0\end{matrix}\right)$ and just examine which block matrices $\left(\begin{matrix} A & B \\ C & D\end{matrix}\right)$ with $A,B,C,D\in\mathrm{GL}(n,\mathbb{R})$ commute with it.
Hm
You know
A simple way to check for tachyons in a non-free case would be like
The $\phi^4$ solution with Jacobian elliptic functions for tachyons
Or maybe breather solutions
I dunno
Although they don't really have compact support
Hm, how to do front velocity on non-compact supports
Maybe you can make them compact in some limit
Let's see
I think the solution was $\approx nd(z,1)$
@ACuriousMind Oh, I knew that.
@ACuriousMind Well, I knew that too.
Thanks for confirmation.
@Slereah what is that?
@Slereah If you want something to research, do a study of causality in string theory.
@Slereah Try to show if the quantum Einstein equations have a well defined Cauchy problem or not.
16:25
@0celo7 Ugh
@0celo7 That's a solution to the $\phi^4$ theory
$(\square + m^2) \phi = \phi^3$
@Slereah What?
@Slereah no what does $nd(z,1)$ mean
It's one of the Jacob elliptic function
It obeys the ODE $nd''(z,k) = (1 + k'^2) nd(z,k) - 2 k'^2 nd^3(z,k)$
obe
obe
@0celo7 I've been reading SR in general frames and it's a lot different from the stuff I've learned before, is it useful though?
For example how he defines the minkowski space-time on page 25.
I would say learning SR in general frames isn't terribly useful
It is best to learn GR and do it in GR
obe
obe
Well the first few chapters of that book cover regular SR though with a lot of detail.
16:35
@0celo7 Why do you keep asking me about things you know, then? :P
although
If you can, learn about Born coordinates
Because if you do a lot of SR, you will run into the usual jackass
"Hey look, FTL in rotating frames!"
Gotta learn about Born coordinates and tell him to shut up
@ACuriousMind reasons
@obe Eh, it's more of a novelty book.
Some of the later chapters are interesting.
But in the beginning he uses way too much detail.
But if you need to calculate time dilation in an accelerating, rotating frame, that's the book you need.
what book is it
Is it Callahan
Sounds a bit like Callahan
no
@ACuriousMind Does the construction of Hamilton's equations on page 236 have any physical content?
He never actually identifies $H$ with any physical quantity, right?
obe
obe
@Slereah This book.
16:44
o
The best part of the book is that he does the twin paradox with a $C^\infty$ trajectory.
You can do that in GR :p
Easy as pie!
Just do a Fermi transport on the twin's trajectory
use Fermi coordinates
Reference?
Fermi coordinates are the coordinates for an observer along a curve
I guess Wald has it?
I know what they are
16:50
Probavbly
I want a reference for someone doing the twin paradox in GR with a $C^\infty$ trajectory.
> 75 The proof of this theorem which is presented in the excellent book by Landau and Lifshitz (Mechanics, Pergamon, Oxford, 1960) is incorrect.
#rekt
Let's see
this maybe?
I dunno
It's not overly difficult to write the twin paradox for arbitrary trajectories in GR
just gotta rewrite the coordinates so that the connection disappears along the path
ACM keeps coming and going
just like autoerotic asphyxiation
2

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