Recent content by BoTemp

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. When you say convergence, are you trying to prove that in the \lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} \frac{a_{n+1}}{a_n} = 1? That would imply that the sequence of numbers goes to some final value, although the sum of those numbers would still diverge since...

I'm assuming that \left| X \right| = 15 means number of elements in X, right? I would suggest that whoever posed the problem was a bit too happy with the ellipses, and should've written M= {1,2,3,4,5,...2048}. I can't think of a more elegant proof than constructing a test case, though. Take...

I can't be of much help other than to say that I read about the theory in Lee Smolin's book, "The Trouble with Physics". He gives a few citations in his book, the two that seem most general are: L. Friedel, J. Kowalski-Glikman, and L. Smolin, "2 + 1 Gravity and Doubly Special Relativity,"...

The fine structure constant alpha = e^2/(hbar c 4 pi epsilon_0), e being the electron charge (I hope everything else is self-explanatory). I would check out that NIST page, it looks pretty good. The fsc originated as a perturbation parameter, 0th order quantum effects have alpha^0 (= 1)...

Halfway Your teacher is correct that the centrifugal force keeps the electron away from the nucleus...sort of. When you work out the orbits of planets, you get a 1/r^3 centrifugal term coming from the angular momentum. Something similar happens with an electron around a nucleus. However, a...

Good references, I think these'll keep me busy for a while. Thanks Eugene

I'm not a moderator so I can't move this post myself, but it belongs in the homework help section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes_parameters If you take the polarization vector and rotate it 180 degrees, you are describing the same ellipse. That's where the factor of 2 comes from, to make those functions periodic over 180 degrees instead of 360 degrees. Not sure if that's exactly...

Seems right to me, although there is at least one assumpution which is implied: 1. All of the wasted energy is lost as heat. Fairly reasonable, there's bound to be some light and sound etc. but the vast majority will definitely be heat. I don't fully understand your notation for Pwaste, but...

The delta notation means "change of" which is the same as derivative. If it makes you feel better, replace delta with delta/ dx and then multiply by dx on both sides to remove it. Seems a bit sketchy, but it works as long as the variation is small, which of course is the point of derivatives...

That's more of a legal issue than anything else. Just because it doesn't work doesn't mean you can't patent it.

I'm of the same mindset as Riposte on MWI v Copenhagen. I can accept a non-deterministic future, but I have difficulty accepting a non-deterministic past. But that's just me. Does anyone know of mathematical explorations of MWI? My understanding is that at the mathematical level...

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/BellsTheorem/BellsTheorem.html PF truncates links when they're displayed. Good idea, but apparently it screws things up for quoting. This link should work.

I realize the example I gave wasn't the cleanest, but the logic is sound as far I could see. Anyway, the crux of the matter. 1a. Sloppy phrasing on the authors part. What he meant was "spin is conserved". The assumption is that measuring the spin at detector A tells you, without a...

Let V be any eigenvector of B, and l be any eigenvalue. B*V= l*V by definition. Starting from that equation you should be able to determine the eigenvalues of B^2. This is what Parlyne meant. edit: l is the corresponding eigenvalue of V.