Recent content by triclon

Most astronomers call White Dwarfs stars. Star is a very generic term for anything hot and massive. If an astronomer wants to specify what type of star they are talking about, they will usually give it's spectral classification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_classification). For...

Things in space tend to be electrically neutral and there is a good reason for that. If you dumped electrons in a black hole to give it a large negative charge, you might be able to repel other electrons but positively charged particles (e.g. protons) would experience an even greater attractive...

This does a good job explaining it: https://www.quora.com/What-is-spin-1-2

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the circular polarization of a single photon correspond to its spin?

I work with gamma ray astronomers and they see it all the time, in fact it creates an annoying background when trying to observe very high energy gamma rays from space. Basically a cosmic ray, a proton or atomic nucleus moving near the speed of light through space strikes the upper atmosphere...

To be a little more clear. I chose \theta={\pi \over 2} because in order for \hbar to be constant, the "thing" that is rotating must be going in a circle at a constant velocity. The velocity vector would be perpendicular to the position vector r, thus \theta={\pi \over 2}.

Wouldn't the fact that angular momentum is quantized imply something is moving in a circle thus \theta={\pi \over 2}?

You all are correct about how I go about working with the momentum, I have overlooked the cross product for the angular momentum \vec{L}=\vec{r}\times \vec{p} but in the Shrodinger Equation, the momentum is squared so we might as well concern ourselves with the norm of these vectors so...

I wasn't sure where the best place to put it was so if this is not it, feel free to move it. Anyway, I came up with my own derivation for Shrodinger's equation. Unlike the normal way it is derived, assuming E=h-bar * omega, and the solutions are complex plane waves, I made a few different...

I am curious if quantum field theory says anything about how much time it takes for an interaction, or particle creation and annihilation, to take place. For example if I have a high energy photon, and it strikes an atomic nucleus and you get pair production forming an electron and positron...

The light coming from the photosphere (the "surface" of the sun) is approximately a black body but the atoms/ions in the thinner outer layers of the sun (ie. the chromosphere) absorb and re-emit certain wavelengths of light. That's what gives us the sun's absorption lines in its spectrum and...

For stars their proper motion (not just radial) can be measured a few ways. If they move fast enough, comparing images from different epochs and looking for a change in position works. Interferometry, if high enough resolution, can also be used to measure the proper motion of stars. As for...