Recent content by sapratz

You are right, a photon does not have mass, that is a generalized form for all matter, for a photon, the equation simplifies.

E^{2}=p^{2} c^{2} + m^{2} c^{4}. is your momentum equation where p is momentum. if you really want to be able to understand all this you are going to get really math intensive probably above your own head.

You need to look at calculations of relativistic speeds for electrons and you also should look into the frequency associated with energy that Einstein derived. Frequency and energy are similar and that is kinda the "bridge" you are looking for. Light has a limited energy based on it's...

What does the asterisk in the problem statement indicate?

when tau = 1, you shift the function to the right one unit. This is where overlap begins. when 1<tau<2 the functions are overlapping, do you see this?

120mil tantalum :) so the average energy of the gamma photons released is 1.9MeV and the number that is actually released is dependent upon the thickness and density of the plate material? That makes sense I guess. Any ideas on some formulas for this calculation? Also, do you think...

please don't yell at me for leaving out the integration of tau and being solely in time space for the solution. When you are doing this graphical convolution kinda stuff, you are considering shifts by tau units.

I didn't understand convolution that well until I saw (cross)correlation concepts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_correlation the only difference is your shifting goes in the opposite direction in correlation functions. Basically if you have two strings of numbers (maybe different...

it's a way to get some weird conceptual value of the commonality of two functions at every point in both functions at every shifting value.

the teacher differentiates between T and Tau by using T and T' which is not a very clear distinction. T is simply the function value at any time. T is in your standard time domain, that we are all so comfortable using. now TAU is the magical convolution x-axis. tau is a measure of how far...

Those diagrams are absolutely terrible with notation, I understand your confusion.

do you understand the difference I am trying to make? the solution isn't the overlap at any time, t. The solution is the amount of area contained after shifting any distance, Tau.

you are mistaking t and tau. There is definitely no overlap from 1<t<3 there is definitely overlap from 1<tau<3

keep in mind that you are comparing always the reflected blue function- NOT the blue function itself

when the function is not shifted, there is no overlap. This is why the function solution is 0 from tau=[0,1]. then once you shift the blue rectangle right one unit, there is initial overlap at tau=1. so the function solution begins to increase after tau=1. as tau (shifting) keeps increasing...