Recent content by merovingian12

A while back I did research in planetary system dynamics that involved the code package Mercury. Unfortunately, I found that Mercury would occasionally crash for no reason or give nonsensical results. This happened for a small subset of initial conditions and while I spent some time debugging...

Hi MidgetDwarf, There's "Challenging Problems in Geometry" by Posamentier and Salkind (a cheap Dover) and "Geometry Revisited" by Coxeter and Greitzer. If I'm not mistaken both of them have solutions for everything. I certainly sympathize with you on the absense of answer keys! For some...

I was thinking more along the lines of interplanetary and interstellar travel in general, so potentially both of those would play a role.

Hello, I'm a second year physics student and I'm interested in new approaches to spacecraft propulsion. I apologize if this has been asked many times - while this interest may be partially inspired by science fiction, I am well aware that the real-life situation is not at all as glamorous...

I'm finishing up my freshman year of college and next fall I'm planning to take: Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems (4 credits) Analysis I (4) Waves and Thermal Physics (4) History of Classical Music (for gen. ed. requirements) (3) I'm fairly confident about my course...

Homework Statement I'm having some trouble understanding "conceptually" the following problem (example 6.18 in Kleppner and Kolenkow.) A stick, initially upright, starts falling: find the speed of the center of mass as a function of position. Homework Equations Work-KE thm. for a rigid...

Fall: (college freshman) Mechanics General and Inorganic Chemistry Theoretical Linear Algebra and Calculus Freshman Writing Seminar Orchestra (maybe)

I'm sorry to bring back the thread, but I've been thinking about this and I still don't understand it. as far as I can tell, solid potassium metal should be oxidized by the sodium ion... so what is the problem? Is it that potassium is so reactive that it wouldn't last long enough to react with...

Would it really need exotic conditions? If I remember correctly, as one goes down Group 1, the metals become more active. So wouldn't the reaction happen spontaneously, since potassium is higher on the activity series than sodium?

I'm sorry, that was a typo. I know that NaBr is a salt. What a meant was a reaction like NaBr + K ---> KBr + Na

Homework Statement Which substance can act only as a reducing agent? I2 BrCl NaBr HIO4 Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution If a substance oxidizes something, the substance itself becomes reduced (gains electrons.) Halogens have high electron affinities and accept...

I haven't actually competed yet. The local exams will be held some time this March. I've looked at questions from both the local and national levels, and I generally knew (or at least had some idea of) how to solve them. However, some questions from the International Chemistry Olympiad involve...

Hello, I am a high school student looking for resources to prepare for the US National Chemistry Olympiad. I have already taken AP Chemistry (although my teacher did not cover a few topics, such as coordination compounds) and I did well in the class and on the exam. At this point, I need...

Thank you! That would explain the "missing" energy. It seems I forgot that in addition to the tangential speed, there would be a normal component (unless it was an extremum, where the rate of change of the radius is zero.) So, would the total velocity vector be pointing either outward or inward...

Homework Statement Two satellites are launched at a distance R from a planet of negligible radius. Both satellites are launched in the tangential direction. The first satellite launches correctly at a speed v0 and enters a circular orbit. The second satellite, however, is launched at a speed...