Recent content by JamesClarke

Homework Statement There are 4 railway flat cars each of mass M traveling with speed v. They're not attached but move together initially without friction. A man of mass m starts at the end and jumps onto the second car, then to the third, and then on to the fourth.When he lands on the 4th it...

Hey, you know the way einstein said that its impossible to tell if you`re in a box that is accelerating or in a gravitational field? But, don`t accelerating charges radiate? so theoretically, by looking at these charges you could in fact tell the difference ? I dunno, maybe I`m missing...

Actually, I get it now. I was too hasty to post online. Sometimes a bit of serious thinking is the best option !

Hi, I was looking at a basic derivation of the lorentz transformation on youtube. I was wondering at what point do you incorporate the fact that speed of light is same in every reference frame because the guy only uses some algebra on a few equations that come from basic geometry and classical...

And if you decide to go down the academic route, is it hard to get funding in Ireland and to get a job in a university or the dias. I`d love to lecture in it but that's a long while away yet.

Thanks for the help I'm heading to trinity and the job prospect info was pretty vague so I just wanted to clarify things a post grad would be an ideal choice but things don't always work out and being employable would be nice

I get what you mean by kids being seduced by brian greene etc but I`m not like that. I prefer to get down to nitty gritty and solve problems. I didn`t enrol to "talk" about alternate universes etc

There is some scope for movement, if you don't like it you can move to more applied courses. Like I said, it`s basically a maths degree with some physics thrown in. I thought about it for a long time before deciding, I already thought myself some special relativity and an extra math subject...

Im from Ireland and it`s a 4 year rigorous maths and physics course that focuses more on the maths side of physics rather than experimental. Its a Bsc

Hi I recently got accepted into a 4 year degree in theoretical physics but I`m kinda starting to worry now that I might not get a job in it. I never really thought about employment before I just chose what I thought was most interesting. But , looking at the coursework, how does learning about...

Thanks for the help. Never even thought of taylor expansion and you can see why it approximates if you do.

Hi, I`ve been dabbling in some basic special relativity and when your deriving the famous equation E = mc^2 you get to this equation just before it. KE = mc^2/sqrt1-v^2/c^2 - mc^2 ie KE = Etotal - Erest but when I try assign a mass and velocity of one i get a kinetic energy of...

that p*sses me off .. that we`ll never know, i mean

That`s exactly my point. Why are things the way they are ?

Hi, I was just wondering why there are a finite number of fundamental particles in the universe. Why is it that when cern collide particles, the same particles are formed every time. Its like putting a hammer to a concrete block and every time you do so, the same chips with the same shape and...