Recent content by Rick16

Should one infer from this that people who don't teach physics don't really understand it?

Neither do I. I completely misinterpreted the whole situation.

Yes. I actually ran into my conceptual problem with Taylor's example, because I always blindly applied the definition of work as a dot product, without really thinking about what it concretely means. I know too many definitions that I have never thought through. I think the main reason why...

I am glad for you that you never have misconceptions.

No, I do understand it. I just had this misconception about it, which I have finally clarified for myself.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. This is not even new to me, I have done it like this myself before. My question was actually due to a very stupid misconception. I first learned about work in 8th grade, where work was defined as force times distance and it was usually done by a guy...

Yes. Once again I posted a question without thinking it through. Everything is clear, sorry for the bother.

I wonder what the work actually represents in this example. Normally, I would say that ##W=\int{\vec{F} \cdot d \vec{r}}## is the work done by the force F as it moves a particle along a path, where the path is determined by this very force. In this case, however, the force points in a direction...

This is odd. I checked the masses and they were okay. I now checked them again, and they are not okay. I must have used the wrong mass for something. Sorry about the bother.

This is problem 2.7 from Griffiths' Introduction to Elementary Particles. Here are the two reactions that I am trying to examine: (c) ##\Sigma^0\rightarrow\Lambda+\pi^0## (g) ##\Delta^+\rightarrow p+\pi^0## According to Griffiths' solutions, (g) is possible, (c) is not possible due to...

Yes, that is mine. I just cannot find anything resembling that one among Griffiths' diagrams. Or could it perhaps be this one:

This is problem 2.3 in Griffiths' Introducion to Elementary Particles. I have Griffiths' solutions, otherwise I would be completely lost. Nonetheless, I tried to come up with a solution of my own first. I found only one possibility, which looked ok to me, but it is not even among the 17 ones...

Thank you. I find it always interesting to read recommendations and comments on books. I noticed that Susan Rigetti has chosen the exact same four basic undergrad texts that I have chosen and that she has marked them as essential: Taylor, Schroeder, Griffiths, and Griffiths. I guess I am not on...

Thanks a lot. This is a derivation that I can follow. For physics purposes it is of course much easier to look up the zeta function and tweek it so that it fits my series. But it is nice to see how this all comes about.

That's why I decided to use an online calculator. I just thought that there might be a simple, straightforward way to solve this. Your demonstration with the zeta function is quite instructive and comes pretty close to the straightforward method that I was looking for, provided that I know the...