Recent content by Randomguy

  1. R

    What is the biggest most fundamental question in all of physics?

    String theory is both fundamental and controversial, so it fits your criteria pretty neatly.
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    A night with the stars (Brian Cox on telly)

    I don't think that's what he's saying. Details about the internal degrees of freedom of the system are contained in the Hamiltonian, which I assume would be constant in its form (the sum of all the individual Hamiltonians each atom in the Universe). He's saying though that when looking at the...
  3. R

    A night with the stars (Brian Cox on telly)

    Surely it must be an entanglement effect? The way I see his argument, he's essentially saying that everything is entangled. Presumably it's only in very controlled, carefully manipulated settings where these effects actually become large enough to be observable.
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    A night with the stars (Brian Cox on telly)

    That is genius. Thanks for the link, it makes a lot of sense to me (or at least I think it does!). To summarise the argument as I see it, it's essentially saying that since no potential barrier can really be infinite the wavefunction of each electron must overlap into other possible potential...
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    Quantum Entanglement inside & outside Event Horizon

    And even still, I hear the tidal forces inside will tear you apart pretty rapidly. That said, don't take my word for it, my mate told me. Presumably he went there over the summer or something.EDIT: Wait, they'd probably squish you actually, wouldn't they?
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    A night with the stars (Brian Cox on telly)

    But on a level appropriate for his audience, he was correct. Yes, technically Pauli's principle determines the states of a quantum system, but since the expectation of the energy is simply the expectation of the Hamiltonian and is the bra-ket combination <wavefunction|hamiltonian|wavefunction>...
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    A night with the stars (Brian Cox on telly)

    Just wrote a long reply...only for these damned forums to sign me out...so I lost it. Arrgh, let me rattle up something similar... Basically, I too am confused by the application of Pauli's exclusion principle to the whole Universe. Do the states of the electrons really shift everywhere? And if...
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    What does it mean to move through time?

    Just thinking this through in my head...I guess time can only be thought of in terms of intervals. So for someone at rest experiencing an interval of time delta t, we say their clock 'runs faster' because in someone moving fast's reference frame the interval of time is less than delta t. In...
  9. R

    Ehrenfest Theorem: Deriving Minus Sign in Commutator

    Lol, those are my lecture notes. The minus sign is there because you have the i inside the bra and so when you take its complex conjugate you get a -i.
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    Which UK universities offer the best physics programs and support for students?

    ^No problem. Yeah, tbh, they don't help you pro-actively and so I've never actually tested that aspect out of the Cambridge system. However, I'm sure if you speak to the right people they'll be able to give you some advice on good positions to apply for etc. Sorry I can't be of more help than that.
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    Do Professors read their own ratemyprofessor.com comments?

    ^I'm sure he does really care about getting his concepts across. My point though is that most people who take his course don't really care about understanding the concepts - they just want to pass the exam. Have you ever seen those textbooks, often written by brilliant mathematicians, which...
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    Do Professors read their own ratemyprofessor.com comments?

    To me, mathwonk sounds like the kind of guy who's rubbish at getting your average student to learn the basic material and pass the exam but perfect for an aspiring mathematician who wants to understand the power and the beauty of the mathematics involved at a deeper level. Unfortunately most...
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    Which UK universities offer the best physics programs and support for students?

    I'm at Cambridge. It's pretty good. In terms of the physics, half of first year is spent doing subjects other than straight physics and maths but I quite enjoyed that actually. After first year it's hardcore physics for years 2,3 and 4 if you stay on for the masters. The workload is massive...
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    Cambridge interview tomorrow Help and Advice needed.

    ^Its not particularly formal, but its not completely informal either. You can't really know what questions to expect, but make sure you can answer the basic ones as well as the technical ones.
  15. R

    Cambridge interview tomorrow Help and Advice needed.

    ^Hope so too... I will do...even if I get rejected...
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