Recent content by physics_head

It seems to me that we should be able to predict the half life of an unstable element. The "cause" of how long on average it takes for an atom to decay should depend on what is going on on the quantum scale within the atom. We know how quantum mechanics works on that scale, we know what kind of...

Is it possible create a quantum mechanics simulation to predict what the half life of an element will be, say C-14? I know one way to figure an element's half life is to get a bunch of atoms(a really big number of them), wait for some time to pass, and count how many atoms decayed, thus the...

okay, but why should a "man made" theory imply that it is not true or "real"? what is the definition of a "real" theory? Well, unlike the physical theories the scientific method produced, deciding if the scientific method is the best truth finding method does not depend on physical evidence...

Your right...I was just making an argument against the common strawmen arguments that creationists make. They like to compare evolution to some random assemply of some complex machine, and then show that it is extremely improbable. However, my argument is that even if that strawman is accepted...

You should have told him: "and you can wait for an eternity for a fully functioning bike to appear out of thin air by some god's creative hand, and it will never happen.." what would you bet your money on? shaking the box till a bike forms, or waiting for matter and energy to be created from...

I would say the scientific method will never ever change. It is the best truth finding procedure possible. But what likely will change are the current "best" theories produced by this method as new evidence is collected... so if it's "man made", then it can't be a "real" or true theory?, but if...

There are many people out there who assert that physics and science is just a man made invention, made by convention. They say a bunch of people just decided and agreed to say that the laws of physics are what they are and that since it was all just made up arbitrarily, this means it may not be...

Also, related to this post..I see this a lot in physics materials...A formula will be given, but they don't explain how the formula was figured out. They just assert that it is true. Now, In mathematics, anytime a theorem is presented, and asserted to be true, a proof is included with it, that...

Coulomb's law says that the electrostatic force between two electric charges is given by the formula: Ke*q1*q2/r^2 So, what I want to know is: 1. How did he figure out that Ke was equal to 1/(4*pi*electric constant)? I mean, I know he used a torsion balance to perform measurements in...