Recent content by Zebulin

What I've read on the Michelson/Morley experiment explains that it made the idea of the luminiferous aether seem less likely, but I don't think I've ever seen an explanation of why everyone didn't just assume that light follows normal Newtonian relativity. What I mean is this: according to...

Nuts. I posted that late at night, under sleep deprivation, and temporarily confused the QM wave function with the electromagnetic wave. The question was really about the electromagnetic wave (Maxwell style).

Apparently you misunderstood the point of my question. I was not asking what authorities I should trust; I was asking for an explanation. From my question, it should be clear that I already know all of this. I don't see anything here that is relevant to answering my question.

I don't see how that is relevant. The angular momentum of such a system is not going to make the masses start moving in a circle around each other. The whole point is that you can't use angular momentum as an explanation for why circular motion continues if there is no centripetal force.

I explained this thinking to a meteorologist once and she couldn't give me an answer. Any physicists want to give it a shot? I find the typical explanation of tornadoes perplexing (that's a polite way of saying I don't believe it). The explanations I've seen claim that tornadoes start out...

This question has been bothering me for decades: Imagine a point source in space that emits one photon per second. Would the photon expand in a globe in all directions until it strikes an object or would the photon shoot off in a random direction? Suppose you have one target ten meters away...

Wow. You guys are great. Thanks.

Normally, I prefer to do my own research, but I'm drawing a blank on this one. Any help would be appreciated. My understanding is that statistical mechanics accounts for all of the heat energy in a gas by the kinetic energy of the molecules. I also understand that atomic orbitals have different...