Recent content by ltjrpliskin

You certainly did, thank you! I should be able to construct proofs myself without memorising them line by line. I like this idea of writing notes in lots of detail. If I am not able to explain a certain detail clearly, then I have not understood this part properly. Thanks mathwonk! I guess I...

I know lots of people say that when you are learning something it is better to understand it rather than just blindly try to memorise it. This might be a silly thread, maybe I'm thinking too hard about it but I would really like some clarification. So I'm wondering, what does it really mean...

Thanks I think I understand it now! Since the background stars are not infinitely distant "the foreground parallax is underestimated" so the parallax angle is actually smaller (in this case 1/40 - 1/400) which gives us the overestimated distance of 400/9 pc.

I see, that makes more sense. I was thinking silly stuff. But one thing I don't understand is how I can measure the parallax distance with just the information about the background stars being at a distance of 400pc.

Homework Statement "Parallaxes are measured relative to background stars. If these are not infinitely distant themselves, then the parallax to the foreground object will be underestimated and its distance will be overestimated. Calculate the distance that will be measured to a star at a...

I just checked the contents page on Taylor's Classical Mechanics... it has special relativity in it which is awesome! :)

Thank you! Would these go beyond the first year since they are dedicated to a specific topic? And do they have lots of questions to practice on too? :)

Hey guys, I am a maths student going onto second year. I wanted to take some physics modules but I'd need some 1st year physics pre-requisites. The topics I need to learn over the summer are: Astronomy Quantum Phenomena Particle Physics Waves Electricity and Magnetism Classical...

I've heard people say this a lot, but how can I compete with myself?

Ahh! Okay, thank you very much :) That was much simpler than expected haha :)

Okay, but can you help me understand why we chose the minimum of 1 and eps/ (2|a| + 1)? :)

f(x) = x^2 and we want to show that as x -> a, f(x) -> a^2. So, we must ensure that |x^2 - a^2| < eps. The book (Calculus by Spivak) starts of by bounding |x - a| < 1 which leads us to |x + a| < 2|a| + 1. This is the part where I get lost: I can understand that we require |x - a| <...

Hey guys, I'm currently in my first year of undergrad studies. Term 1 was quite enjoyable and easy... but now i am near the end of term 2 and it is getting very difficult - we get assignment after assignment after assignment... this doesn't really bother me - what bothers me the most is that I...