Layman Definition and 71 Threads

Hi. I'm an engineer, not a physist. That being said, I have an interest in physics - particularly in the field of general relativity.

Hello, everyone! I'm aware that there's already a thread (probably many ones) for textbooks on the topic of CMT and also exclusively Solid State. As far as I know, Oxford's Solid State Basics is the recommended book for undergraduates and generally people only beginning their adventure with...

I am not sure what is meant by "detail and support material". I will offer this about myself. I am probably the most ill-equipped person from a classically trained/educated student of physics perspective to be of much help to anyone. I am 73 years old and the last physics course I took was in...

In Layman's terms, what did Klinkerfues experiment show, what was he trying to test and what was conclusion. Same questions for Airy's follow up experiments in 1871 and 1872. Thanks !

I watching this video and have a few questionsIs the warp shield the bending of space in the warp drive? In a warp drive in order to speed you need a to feed in energy. If you do not feed energy would the speed just be the speed of the ship?what is the warp shield made of? I mean is it man...

A book on optics which is less mathematical maybe a similar one to physics for poets or gamow gravity classics

Summary:: Sci-Fi author looking for science advisor Hi everyone :) I have just completed the first draft of a novel and am looking for someone to review the science and confirm I'm not wildly off base, misunderstanding, or otherwise talking out of my ass before I begin the edits for the...

I'm a college grad, but not in science or physics. I'm useless on the math. However, I have a solid layman's understanding of double slit experiment as well as the delayed choice quantum eraser . I also have a layman's understanding of quantum physics via reading some mainstream science...

Okay, first of all so I'm in no way educated in the concepts and especially the notation of quantum physics; my knowledge is confined to a very simple superficial understanding. However, if someone could educate me about why faster than light communication is impossible in the scenario I'm...

QUESTION: I read in book that in beta + decay proton decays to neutron But i can't understand how it is possible if proton mass is less than neutron mass.I read on net but it says 'quarks' and 'd u p' things which i don't study about currently. Also why it only happen inside nucleus?What...

Hello, recently elsewhere on the interwebs I was subjected to a discussion on whether it is possible to travel faster the light under relativity. My general rule of thumb is that if you ever think you've found a way to travel FTL under relativity then you don't understand relativity. Especially...

I am a retired man, who has always wanted to be a Physicist. I have no credentials, and am not qualified to comment on anything, but I enjoy having studied Physics some 43 years ago, and am only slightly behind what was current then. I have engaged in discussions on Quora, and in many other...

I am looking for any resources which explain the RSA algorithm for the layman. I have found a number of sources but they all tend to end with a morass of technical details. This is for a first year undergraduate course in number theory who have covered some basic work on modular arithmetic.

I am looking for any resources which explain the RSA algorithm for the layman. I have found a number of sources but they all tend to end with a morass of technical details. This is for a first year undergraduate course in number theory who have covered some basic work on modular arithmetic.

In the literature we are told that the double slit experiment works but are given no description of the experiment apparatus How big are the slits, how far apart are they, or does it matter Would using 3 slits make a difference, would photon go through A and B, or through B and C, or all 3. When...

Thank you for your valuable time sorry I don't know appropriate place to get clarification. 1. I've read that if one could know the position, speed etc of every atom or particle in the universe one could predict how everything would turn out. If this is true then is there a scientific argument...

First off, I know very little about physics and have only taken classes in high school years ago. I'm a car fanatic and I'm mainly joining this forum to settle a debate I'm having with one of my friends about turbo cars and boost leak tests. For those who don't know, in an automotive...

I've been asked by someone with minimal background in physics to explain what vector and scalar quantities are and give examples. Here are my thoughts: A scalar is a quantity that has a magnitude only, it is completely specified by a single number. Importantly, it has no directional dependence...

Qubit can be ZERO and ONE at the same time. Right? 1 and 0 can represent TWO (10) in a binary system. Right? Therefore one qubit can represent number 2. Right? My question. When this qubit is used to give a result of a calculation (is measured/evaluated somehow at the end of a calculation) it...

My previous thread on this topic got a bit messy as the gist of the argument was in the middle of the thread and turned out wrong. Hence this new updated version. One of my favourite articles on Bell's Theorem can be found at...

Isaac0427 submitted a new PF Insights post Complex and Irrational Exponents for the Layman Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.

So its been a while since I studied maxwells equations, anyway: So From my ignorant perspective, trying to derive conceptual meaning from these, I can see that the time dependant study there is some conductivity x the partial differential of the magnetic vector potential plus the cross product...

May a layman post a scientific manuscript (regarding cosmology) in "arXiv"? Will it be properly reviewed? Thank you, if you know the answer.

All I know is that Lagrangian is kinetic energy- potential energy and Hamiltonian is kinetic energy + Potential energy. Why do we calculate the lagrangian or hamiltonian?

Skip to 29:50. Here Feynman is explaining how some laws are not independent of energy conservation. In this case he goes on to explain how instead of using the law of levers were can use energy conservation to see what weight an object needs to on one side be to balance (or be in a state where...

I have been presenting some data and I was asked to present it "better". The figures have been fractions of a percent (e.g. 0.05%) and I would like to convey how small that is to a layman. I don't want to go to Parts Per Million and my first thought is to say 1/20th of 1% represents 0.05%...

I'm still very early on in my reading, so forgive me if this question isn't coherent. In the "historical introduction" section of the 1920 University of Calcutta translation of the original papers of Einstein and Minkowski available via the MIT online archive, mention is made of the fact that...

Hey! Here's a question. This is Mercury as seen from some telescope during one of its transits The white disk in the background is the Sun. So suppose now that I am where this telescope is and start approaching Mercury. As I approach, both the Sun and Mercury would become larger from my point...

My https://www.amazon.com/dp/0073532320/?tag=pfamazon01-20 (p. 176 Example 7.1) pointed out that an investment ##p(t) = 100\,2^t## (##t## in year) that doubles the capital every year starting with an initial capital of $100, has an (instantaneous) rate-of-change ##\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t} p(t)...

Suppose you meet a layman who has not even had Freshman-level college physics, but who has HEARD of or read something about Planck units and is curious about them. How would you go about explaining? Maybe it's obvious to some people how to do it, or maybe you have already had that experience...

Hello, I've been thinking lately about the strange orbit speeds of galaxies and I came up with a little loony idea. What if gravity has a minimum attraction? To put it a different way, the attraction of any mass continues with a constant force no matter the radius after a certain distance...

Can someone explain what the PID robust methodology is all about in simple words?http://www.irt.rwth-aachen.de/en/fuer-studierende/downloads/pidrobust/ One of the advantages of the method stated is that "capability to process plants with delay time ". Whats so great about that? Usual...

Don't know how I bumped into this but thought some of you might like this, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/sci.physics.research/5w2S-j0Vyfw/A95XAYUGaWgJ By, Urs Schreiber 4/11/03 photon as strings for peasants (was: Meaning of dilaton field) Oz schrieb: > I presume...

Hello there, I've for a long time thought that movement energy is transferred through collisions, one atom hits another and transfers it's momentum (Billiard balls). When they're stuck in a rigid structure like a metal, they vibrate until the energy of vibration exceeds the energy of their...

Hi, I'm new both to this forum and to physics in general. Here's hoping I've posted in the right place... I'm basically trying to understand the difference between energy and matter and how one can become the other. Please bear with me, I'm a total layman and can't seem to get a definitive...

I was just doing some thinking about the folding of space time. I have seen a demonstration that a piece of paper is folded in two and a hole is poked through the two layers. Are there any negative consequences and if so what are the consequences of folding space time, and what are the...

Quantum Entanglement... for the layman? ! This may be a tall order, but can anyone explain the basics of quantum entanglement (theory?) in words that a relative layman might have a chance of understanding. The reason I ask is that although I have a only very basic knowledge of quantum...

Hello, I'm currently working on the background for a science fiction collection of short stories I am working on, and communication by means of entanglement plays a big role in it, and I want to make sure that I get it right. So here it comes. As I understand it, particles can become...

Hi all. English is not my native language, so bare with me (joke i found googling the right word). I am from Argentina. My question. If i throw a ball, i have learned it has kinetic energy. But if motion is relative doesn't that mean that my hand has the kinetic energy too? thanks.

Hi, is it true that: 1. when virtual particles/antiparticles come to existence every billionth particle survives? is it the reason why the universe consists of particles rather than antiparticles? 2. when virtual particles annihilate the energy gets absorbed by the vacuum in contrast...

A recent abstract discusses the first report ever of the remission of an autoimmune disease from which I suffer, ankylosing spondylitis. As a layman without access to subscriptions to professional journals, I was wondering if there might be any posters who are aware of the best internet sites...

1. Does the range where the Higgs has (possibly) been detected differ from what was expected? If so, what is the significance of this? 2. What is the name of the corresponding fermion to the higgs boson? 3. Do we already understand the Higgs mechanism "completely" or will its discovery...

Hi folks, I've been watching the Teaching Company videos on quantum mechanics, and I have a few questions regarding energy quantization. It seems he is saying that energy can only appear in the universe in discrete quantities, which explains blackbody radiation and the heat capacity...

Hello, this has been bugging me for a bit, so some clarification would be greatly appreciated. Say I'm located on a planet 30x10^8 m away. And assuming light to be 3x10^8 m/s for easy calculation, it would take light 10s to travel to Earth, where you'd be able to see me, as I was 10 seconds ago...

Hello, my first post. I hope this is the right forum... I'm considering a heat exchanger to solve a problem. I've purchased a tankless water heater for home usage - look at it as a black box, cold water flows in, hot water flows out. Output temperature is quite constant due to a digital...

Does anyone know the best place if any for a layman to publish a scientific paper or article?

Does the below sound ok? 1. Interference is caused between coherent waves 2. When we try to find which-way we break the coherence a) When we try to "partially" find which way, we partially break the coherence and hence a "partial" interference pattern 3. DCQE is explained by the fact...

Hi I'm neither a student of math nor of computer science. So, please keep your replies as simple as possible. I have always been under the impression that learning an unnatural language such as a computer language, e.g. C or C++, is all about memorization as is learning DOS commands. Is...

Hello everyone, my name's Ricky (or RJ, whichever you prefer). My interest in physics (and, incidentally, logic and philosophy) started when I was watching Star Trek on my tiny black and white television as a child. Around the time I was eight or ten years old I got interested in astrophysics...

I'm an adult in the finance industry with no science background, and I'd like some help understanding relativity. I'm reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein, and while I know it's not the point of the book, I can't get my head around the passages concerning relativity and it's really...