Recent content by Xcellerator

Ok, I understand that, I thought it didn't make sense. How does the same idea fit into QED and changing energy levels of electrons by emission and absorption?

Ok, I've been reading up on the EM field and how it exerts force on charged particles. By exerting this force it creates 'ripples' in the EM field and this is felt by other charged particles as a force (either of attraction or repulsion). We say that the two particles exchanged a virtual photon...

Ok, this is something that I've been trying to figure out for a while now. Where does the energy for a supernova explosion come from and if the star can produce this energy, then why does it collapse under its own gravity? Surely it would have the energy to continue on as a star in whatever...

Hi all, I was at some event last week and we had tea candles on each table. At one point in the evening, I noticed that the wax in one of the candles had gone entirely molten, and was also completely transparent. The wax was originally opaque. Now, I understand how transparency works, it's...

Ok, I am having some trouble with the maths regarding Bohr Theory. I understand that the orbit radius is r=n^2xa0 where a0=0.0529 and that the wavelength for an electron with l=0 (circular orbit), is λ=2∏r so for n=1, λ=6.28a0. So, following the same maths, for n=2, I get...

Hi, I've had something that's been bothering me for a while and I've been researching it, but I just want to clear something up. I understand that the exclusion principle dictates that fermionic particles with half-integer spin have an anti-symmetrical wavefunction under exchange, and...

So, what about the energy required for the quark? If the energy transfers from the quark field to the W field, then what is left for the actual quark in the nucleon? And what about when a W boson decays into quarks? I now understand virtual particles properly because the final products conserve...

I understand how beta decay works on a fundamental level, in that either an up or down quark in the one of the nucleons decays into an up or down quark and in the process, a W boson is emitted which in turn decays into an electron and an electron antineutrino or opposites thereof depending on...