Recent content by Bork

Ok, I think I've figured something out, though I'm sure it's not the complete picture and I have tons of reading left to do. Classically, we know that Poisson brackets can be used with momentum to generate infinitesimal spatial tranlations via the relation...

Thanks again, now I think this makes much more sense to me. So am I right then to say that there is pretty much only one way, up to unitarity, to represent \hat{p} in the \left|x\right\rangle basis, in order to get the correct commutation relations? And if this is indeed the case, are you then...

Thanks for your help. I went to the link you gave me and read through a couple of articles. What it seems you're showing, if I'm correct, is that there's a correspondence between the Lie algebra of quantum operator commutators and the Lie algebra of Poisson bracket derivatives, with the...

Hi all, I've posted a little bit here in the past but I don't think anyone's going to really remember me from those. I hope to come back more frequently now, especially since I've now learned how to use the TEX feature. There was a post with members asking somewhat similar questions a couple...

Yeah, the solution will only be unique if you specify an initial condition such as y(0). Otherwise your integrating factor method should still leave you with a term Ce^x for some undetermined constant C.

Hi, Keith. I'm sure the provided FAQ has all the answers you need, but I figure I should throw in my own approach to the problem, as I feel it can help to clarify this paradox for you immensely. An insight from one of my intro physics textbooks opened the door for me to understand this paradox...

What I meant is that if high school kids are getting the impression physicists make careers out of clanking balls together on their desks and stuff like that, they're way off. Anyone who makes a career out of studying that stuff better be doing it in serious detail, down to the atomic level...

Given the kinds of ridiculous slander and misunderstandings abounding about the US with regards to theories like Evolution and the Big Bang, there indeed seems to be a huge problem with science education in the U.S. I remember writing a history paper about the impact Sputnik's launch had on the...

In my final year of high school physics, I didn't get along well with the teacher. He was from more of an engineering background, and didn't seem too interested in the more theoretical aspects of what I was studying. While sometimes he was willing to go into a more detailed theoretical or...

I think you are mostly correct. The electron is like a fuzz cloud extending to infinity, but mostly concentrated in a region near the nucleus. It is most definitely not a billiard ball in shape or behaviour, but it does have some similar properties, and in this sense your teacher would be...

You can look up the Fresnel experiments on measuring the speed of light in a moving medium. The experimental results agree with the relativistic prediction. Light in a medium travels at less than c, so you can expect the speed of the conducting medium to have an effect as measured in an inertial...

As soon as one observer measures the x position of the particle (or technically, restricts the wavefunction so most of it is contained in a small interval), that sets the value for the other person's measurement, so the measurements can never be independent, even if in your lab frame they're...

Your equation can't be right, because you are saying (units of distance)^2+(units of time)^2=(units of velocity)^2, and in physics these three units should always match up in such an equation. However, Country Boy makes an excellent point that your idea is actually close to what happens in...

Oh silly me, my apologies. I didn't realize you bracketing the operators between 2 q0's is a different situation than usual. Since <q0|q0> is not normalized to 1 (it's the infinite part of a delta spike), everything I just said is irrelevant, and the other posters should have your answers. Plus...

Hi cesiumfrog, then it seems we're in agreement. My latest refutations is of course mainly referring to the original post and the associated claims, not to anything you've said. Now no offense to the original poster, as you are merely quoting claims from a source and running it by others to...