Nature Definition and 712 Threads

An electron travels as a wave. But what kind of wave? Sound waves are longitudinal, light waves are transverse, but what kind of wave does the electron travel as?

This month at PI there will be a 3 day workshop on the Laws of Nature. As outsiders, what can we learn? http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Events/Laws_of_Nature/Laws_of_Nature%3A_Their_Nature_and_Knowability/ Smolin and Unger have a book in the works about this (time and the laws of nature)...

This is a troubling question for me. Certainly there exists in our universe sequences of events which may or may not be undone easily. For example, I can walk 31 steps forward, then walk 31 steps backward and return to where I was. However, I can not easily unmix milk from my coffee after I have...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The origin of life and humans is unknown.That is to say that humans do not know how they came into being and why humans come to this world. We only know that life and humanity is the product of natural...

I've been learning the basics of Maxwell's laws, and was especially interested to see that there was a Gaussian formulation of Newtonian gravity in terms of the negative divergence of the gravitational field, which in turn helped me understand the divergence of the electric field a bit more...

I adored the Discovery's Planet Earth series and Disney's Earth. Is anyone looking forward to Disney Oceans!? I can't wait, I will be at the midnight show! (jk). I think these shows and movies do a great service in getting kids and people interested in nature and science...

Homework Statement What indicates that particles also posses a wave nature? a. they exhibit interference b. they reflect in the same way as waves c. they transmit energy d. they can travel nearly the speed of light Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution I don't know. I...

I'm in my physics course right now and recently became interested in mineral deposits and my teacher told me to look into how geologists use the wave nature of light to find mineral deposists.. I am not sure if I am just really confused about the subject or if I just can't find anything but...

Homework Statement Which of the following phenmena can be explained on the basis of the particle nature of light a. hydrogen spectrum b. spectrum by a prism. c. photoelectric effect d. x- rays2. The attempt at a solution i know that that the photoelectric effect is a proof that light exists as...

Hi, all I got a question about the origin of reciprocal space..what is the physical nature of the special point? Does that originate from diffraction? or Is that a diffraction points? We know that a 'normal' reciprocal point designates a group of parallel plane. How about the origin of...

[SIZE="3"]Take Electromagntic wave for example , when light pass from vacuum to one medium , how does the atoms of the medium bend the light towards a certain direction at the microscopic level ?

Seems like a strange question, but it just appeared on one of my tests. My guess would be redox, but what is the logic behind the answer? Thanks for the help!

[SIZE="2"]hi i am little confused about UNIFICATION OF FORCES what does one mean when he talks about the unification of electromegnatic and weak nuclear force (which was achieved by dr.abdus salam) how can forces be combined ?

With the theory of Hawking Radiation, people generally say to imagine that the black hole has a temperature, so it must radiate heat. But, this really is not how it is said to work. The means by which the black hole evaporates is not that particles are actually coming out of it, or that it is...

When you hear those crazies talking about a 6000 year old universe, they show little belief in God narrowing a concept of a supreme all poewerful force to something trivial so they can unserstand it. The way I get simpletons to understand it is that if you burn oxygen and graphite O2 and C...

Homework Statement A water-skier is moving at a speed of 13.3 m/s. When she skis in the same direction as a traveling wave, she springs upward every 6.2 s because of the wave crests. When she skis in the direction opposite to the direction in which the wave moves, she springs upward every...

Hello, I'm studying decoherence at the moment, as a result I've also been looking a wavefunction collapse. I was wondering what the definition of a full measurement is and whether they occur outside of the lab? - I've been looking at 'measurement like' interactions, which cause...

According to wikipedia, "Electromagnetic radiation (often abbreviated E-M radiation or EMR) is a phenomenon that takes the form of self-propagating waves in a vacuum or in matter. It consists of electric and magnetic field components which oscillate in phase perpendicular to each other and...

I have a question regarding probability of quantum measurement. Consider polarized photon beam that is going through polarizer. Let's assume that beam intensity is very low so that we can consider it as separate photons going through polarizer one by one. Now if we consider any single photon...

I have been reading Eugene Hecht's Optics and the quoted text at the end of this post intrigues and confuses me. From his explanation, it seems to be that as the concentration of a dye increases, the reflected light switches to being complementary to the color of the dye. Question 1.) Do...

Homework Statement Q: An electromagnetic radiation has a frequency of 5.00 x 10^14 Hz. a) Calculate its wavelength in a vacuum, in meters and nanometers. b) Calculate its wavelength in water. c) Is this radiation visible? If so, what is its colour? d) What is the index of refraction of a...

I read on a website (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/gravity.html): "The world we live in consists of four dimensions, the three space dimensions and one that is not exactly time but is related to time (it is in fact time multiplied by the square root of -1)." In my...

hi this is anom. i am new in physics forum. i have come up with some ideas and would love to share it with you. any compliments and constructive criticism will be appreciated.

Note: This is a revised re-post of an earlier thread that I started, but I feel there was some misunderstanding in it's purpose so I have attempted to clarify with the current revisions. This is not intended to be a thread on metaphysical speculation, but rather an observation on a property of...

The question posed is a very general one. I want to understand the nature of time exactly in this thread. Time seems to have 3 commonly ways of looking at First is in special relativity we have world lines evolving in a space time continuum with the Lorenz transformation the space time metric...

so my "professional" high school physics teacher began our intro with electricity by telling us to do notes...and failed to answer basic physics questions so here is the product of my curiosity It states that, electricity is produced by the electron transfer between objects in a basic sense...

In chemistry, a molecule that can be described by various resonance forms is in reality a hybrid, different from all of these forms yet still 'influenced' by them. This does not change the fundamental nature of the molecule (i.e. atoms bonded together etc.), only means that we lack a single...

cause of spectra is transition of electron form one state to another state. but which one? emission spectra or absorption spectra. or in what case both spectra can be seen?

I'm new to studying physics. Are the laws of nature and the laws of physics synonymous with each other? Thanks!

What differentiates the sound of a tree falling from the sound of a piano playing? What differentiates the sound of a piano (near-universally classified as music) from the sound of a rapper (still argument about naming that music)?

Hey, anyone remember what was the first topic that got posed back in metaphysics 101? It is many years ago now, but as I recall it, the very first tutorial I ever had was on the question of time. Does it exist separate from change? Are we just part of a forever present moment or is there...

hi.. i wondered... is energy is something tangible? i mean.. theoretically.. is it possible, with some (theoretical maybe) test machine to test how much energy there is in a body? or is is a theoretical concept (that obviously helps solving problems, but is unmeasurable) my guess was...

Homework Statement 1,2-difluoroethylene has two isomers, cis and trans, and they do not interconvert readily. However, cis and trans isomers of (C6H5)HC=CH(C6H5) do interconvert (but slowly). How is the intermediate required for that interconversion stabilized by the phenyl groups...

Five Star Question Of The Day: What can a greater understanding about merging black holes tell us about the nature of time?

Sorry for a (maybe) dumb question, but... I understand that according to QM, the description of the situation for a particle or system is described by a linear superposition of the wave functions of all the possible states (eigenstates) of the system. When a measurement is made, the wave...

Hi All, I'm no expert, nor have had any training, i just read a lot so I would be interested in some debate about an idea I have after reading lots of different things. To try help explain the idea I've drawn a crude picture which is attached. Can anyone explain to me the possibility of...

My textbook says for every electric field due to a static charge distribution, the force exerted by that field is conservative. If that force is used to accelerate a charged particle, wouldn't the particle disapate some of its energy, as EMR? therefore you cannot say U_a + K_a = U_b + K_b as...

Without mathematics or interpretations, can anyone claim to know absolutely for sure right now what the exact nature of the electron is? If so, what is the exact nature of the electron? What is its physical real-life structure (no models, interpretations, etc). I am clear on how it behaves in...

How can electrons that make up a current not repel each other at far distances due to their like charges? I understand why protons are bunched up together , because of the strong force. Though electrons are not packed up against one another like protons and neutrons, they are still a short...

The "wave nature" of the wave function. Let's say an electron has a certain wave function in two dimentions, and a proton or electron travels through it (the wavefunction). Will the wavefunction of the electron experience "wave effects" like if one drove a piece of wood through a body of...

In the past several major advances in physics have been associated with the discovery that something wasn't absolute, but depended on the observer. Padmanabhan just posted A Dialogue on the Nature of Gravity, which is remarkably readable, and which argues among other things that entropy is...

The whole idea of an electric field induced due to a changing magnetic flux seems to run wildly counterintuitive to me. Consider this set up as shown in my physics textbook. A current carrying solenoid placed along the axis of a circular conducting loop. A changing current through the turns of...

I understand the logic for GUT, proton decay, SU(5), SO(10) manifest at extremely high energies, as well as SUSY-extensions, has it been ever seriously considered that GUT is unrealized in nature? Fundamentally new physics takes over at higher energy, and therefore SM 200 Gev level energy...

Seeing as there is no net force on a magnetic dipole placed in a magnetic field ( only torque ) , and that magnetism in say a bar magnet is caused by nothing more than tiny atomic current loops ( magnetic dipoles) oriented in the same direction , i don't understand how a bar magnet would get...

what is the meaning of deceptivness of field line?? i mean for 2d surface field line = n/2pi*r (f.l. inversly proportional to r) but for 3d surface f.l.= n/4pi*r^2 (f.l. inversly proportional to r^2), since electric field = kq/r^2?? what is the reason behind it? it written in the...

Why is gravity considered a fundamental force and not the production of electromagnetism and weak/strong nuclear forces?

Homework Statement The particle nature of light is best illustrated by which of the following? 1) The scattering of alpha particles from gold foil. 2) The fact that hot objects emit electromagnetic radiation. 3) The diffraction pattern observed when a beam of electrons is scattered by a...

gravity: Fg = GM1M2/r^2 electro-magnetic: weak force: strong force:

The following is something i read, and attempt to reproduce. I made no claim for originality. For anyone that wants the title of the book, and page number. I will find it, and post it. ( I remember the author is an adjunt professor at rockefeller university) The universe U is a computer...

only one isotope of element X occurs in nature. One atom of this isotope has a mass of 9.123x10-23g. What is the molar of the element X?