Recent content by fizzle

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    Insights Exploring the Anatomy of Compton Scattering

    We have the beginning electron speed (zero) and the final speed, is there an equation or graph of the electron's speed (or acceleration) between those two points in time? Thanks
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    Are harmonics "real" in a vibrating string?

    It's a mathematical trick. The guitar string is not a sum or superposition of "substrings" vibrating at different frequencies with different amplitudes. You can *approximate* the string's behavior with Fourier or other mathematical analysis techniques ... but the string does what it does...
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    I Compton's Effective Velocity and de Broglie == numerology?

    In Compton's 1923 paper, he notes that the scattered wavelength's angular dependence is identical to the Doppler Shift due to an electron moving with the incident wave at an effective velocity: $$\beta = \frac{ h \nu_0 } { h \nu_0 + m_0 c^2 }$$ What's really interesting is that if you calculate...
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    Questions about electric fields, voltage and electric energy

    No, you generally think of the wires as 100% conductors and the load, e.g. a resistor, as the place where the electromagnetic energy is dissipated (converted to heat). As Dale noted, it's the electromagnetic field that carries the energy from place to place. The most obvious example is the Sun...
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    How many electrons on a Capacitor calculation

    The voltage on a capacitor is Vc = Q / C. Note: you copied images from two different circuit explanations and that's causing confusion. The "Vb" in the first image is "Vs" in the second image.
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    Java Suitability of Java for computational physics, as compared with C or F

    Your item #1 is the most important issue. Are there Java libraries to help you accomplish your goal? If not, that's a *big* problem because you'll spend a lot of time re-implementing C/C++ or FORTRAN code in Java (including extensive debugging and testing of numerical results, which can get...
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    Help with spatial resolution conversion programming (bmp image)

    DH mentioned the killer issue (uninitialized "s", which probably is a negative number and results in an infinite loop). Once that's fixed and the program runs correctly, you'll suffer from poor output quality due to the use of 8-bit numbers in the calculations which leads to various overflows...
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    Insights Struggles With The Continuum - Part 2 - Comments

    Is the problem with your Newtonian example due to the implied instantaneous-action-at-a-distance in the fundamental equation (which means the result isn't fully conservative)? At some point you have to modify the equations to allow for changes in the gravitational system to propagate, like...
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    Are Photons Actually Infinitely Small Particles?

    When you see the double slit experiment with water waves, do you doubt that the waves went from place to place? No, because the observation tools are high enough quality to see the intermediate steps. You apparently want to revert to action-at-a-distance simply because we haven't constructed...
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    Are Photons Actually Infinitely Small Particles?

    I couldn't disagree more. If something goes from place to place, it has to traverse the intermediate space. If you create a theory that doesn't have that as a fundamental part, then your theory is either tracking fictitious quantities or your theory is simply a higher level calculation shortcut.
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    Are Photons Actually Infinitely Small Particles?

    I don't. Don't be condescending ("comforting"). The Victorians looked through EM-colored glasses, attempting to model everything as EM waves. Today we look through QM-colored glasses, attempting to model everything, no matter how tortured, as QM whatevers. Also, QM is old ... almost 100 years...
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    Are Photons Actually Infinitely Small Particles?

    -deleted reply- Edit: The thread appears to have been started with the intent to say, yet again, that everyone is "doomed to failure" if they don't accept the status quo. Carry on.
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    Are Photons Actually Infinitely Small Particles?

    Wel then, what is the correct photon model for a radio wave? Is it one photon or a huge number of them?
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    Are Photons Actually Infinitely Small Particles?

    If I understand the whole "photon" business correctly, a radio wave would be composed of waves of billions of photons (one for each electron excited in the antenna), not a single "photon" at 200 kHz. The number of photons would be proportional to the magnitude of the radio wave and that number...
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    Are Quantum Waves Tangible or Merely Mathematical Constructs?

    A filter doesn't really "extract" a Fourier component, it simply responds to the overall input excitation and produces output based on the filter's characteristics (with phase and amplitude changes, etc.). Also, isn't superposition mainly a mathematical/accounting concept? If I add two waves...
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