Recent content by Nirgal

Correction: \vec{E} = -\vec{\nabla}V. Anyways, I'm sure you knew that. anmolnanda it's important to understand the physical significance and the mathematical description of the electrostatic field vs the electrostatic potential field. The Equation above says that the Electric Field is just...

I was wondering if anyone had input into this question. Is the measured polarization of a beam of light relative to the frame of the observer? In the texts on Optics that I've read, there does not seem to be any reference to the observer's frame. It is only mentioned that light is...

Have you discussed Lagrangian mechanics yet? It is easiest to use Lagrangian mechanics to solve coupled oscillator problems such as this. You have to write down the Lagrangian of the system and then solve Lagrange's equation of motion. If you want to find any dependence on length it will be in...

If you start learning calculus I would advise that you do not use calculators for graphing, integration, or differentiation. You should really learn to graph them, do the integrals and derivatives by hand. You may ask, what's the point if a computer can do it for me? If you learn to do...

Have you ever heard of the Genetic Fallacy? It's a type of argument or conclusion drawn from a person's background, origin, or history rather than the actual claims that the person makes. It is called a fallacy because it is an incorrect method of analysis. If you read this book you'll see...

Ah, I see you don't enjoy that novel because of your own politics. I tend not to judge fiction based on my disagreements with what occurs in the story. Considering that the book won Hugo, Clark, Locus, and Nebula awards, I would suggest that your opinions do not reflect that of the majority...

Programming is extremely useful, if not essential, to the study of Physics. A great majority of physical problems are studied using computational physics. For example, in Astrophysics and plasma physics you must write software to solve the equations of motion for systems such as galaxies, star...

You should read the Red Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). This is in my opinion one of the best science fiction series that has ever been written about colonizing another planet. The story revolves around the science and engineering involved with regards to...

Also, this may not be totally correct, since I have not verified this with a professional, but I have always assumed that the eye can observe light due to the same reason that personal radios can observe music emitted from a radio station. When an electromagnetic wave passes over a conductor...

One important reason which leads us to believe that light is a wave is that when you write down the differential equations that describe the interactions of electric and magnetic fields (Maxwells Equations), we see that a couple of the equations are the same as wave equations, in other words...

The question is ambiguous. From a certain philosophical point of view you could say that the Electric and Magnetic fields are different, in the sense that the different phenomena you observe can be understood by invoking the idea of an Electric field or a Magnetic field. Again, as iterated many...

lalbatros, that sounds like an interesting problem, I'll look into it and report back. Good idea! responding to Per Oni: You're right. I forgot to include the surface area in Gausses Law. Thanks for the heads up. That certainly changes the results a bit and makes it a lot more interesting.

Well, if you want me to give you the math in detail I will but for now this will do. First figure out what the electric field is inside a uniformly charged sphere. Call it E. Call the total charge on the sphere Q. The total volume of the sphere V. The charge density is Q/V. You need...

That report is not saying that the electric field exists because of the thunderstorms. It is saying that thunderstorms provide the mechanism to move charges against this electric field to the earth. Which is exactly as I described. You might be confused because they said "Thunderstorms are the...

It really depends on the materials that make up the ball and the wall. Depending on the materials you will get an elastic, inelastic, or somewhere-in-between collision. I don't think this answers your question though. Say the collision is completely elastic so that the ball rebounds completely...