Modern and Theoretical Physics

Can somebody please explain to me what exactly a strangelet is? I keep reading about this ridiculous "Doomsday Lawsuit" that a couple of extremist publicity hounds are filing against CERN, claiming that the Large Hadron Collider will produce black holes, strangelets and magnetic monopoles which will , and I quote "Destroy the Earth and possibly the universe as well". I know generally what a strangelet is, but not how it could possibly wipe out the Earth. And also, how the heck would a magnetic monopole destroy the Earth? Since a monopole is basically just a magnet with only one pole (or at least analogous to).

This seems to be a widely misunderstood concept (including by me), yet one commonly used wrongly. One of the common mistakes, for instance, is describing something as simply infinite without specifying exactly what quality of the thing is supposed to be infinite. So let me make some statements and ask some questions regarding infinity and I would like anyone properly knowledgeable to verify their validity, if not make some corrections. It seems to me that structure can exist within infinity. One example of this would be that in a hypothetical universe that is infinite in time, space and matter, that matter could exist as one particle per light year or as an infinite g…

Nobel Laureat Stewen Weinberg always emphasized his hostility to Philosophy and Religion. But "Dreams of Final Theory" is not Philosophical idea? My be even Religous idea? Because it grounded on Belief such Theory does exist.

Has there ever been found a relation between some properties of light (its speed, how mass increases as an object nears light speed, the degree to which light is bent by a gravity field, possible energy levels of photons, etc.) and the equation ? Or rather, are there any phenomena ascribed to light/photons that can be reduced to or is described by the equation? I know this is a pretty vague question, but any answer would be welcome.

In the magazine Physics Today i read very interesting Frank Wilczek"s articles Whence the Force of F=ma? 1: Culture Shock, Physics Today 57 N10 11-12 (2004) Whence the Force of F=ma? II Rationalizations, Physics Today 57 N12 10-11 (2004) Whence the Force of F=ma? III: Cultural Diversity, Physics Today, 58 N7 10-11(2005) Total Relativity: Mach 2004, Physics Today, 57 N4 10-11 (2004) All articles you can read there http://xserver2.lns.mit.edu/~csuggs/physics_today/wilczekpubs.html For me real challenge was : "Perhaps all that complexity is a hint that the real number model of space and time is an emergent concept that some day will be derived f…

Now, before asking my question i would like to say i am just a 14 year old kid i dont have any degrees in science whatsoever and if i state false information of any kind i would like to be corrected after all thats why i am posting here I have recently been introduced to the 10 dimension idea ( my source of information : http://revver.com/video/99898/imagining-the-tenth-dimension/ ) My question is if someone from the dimensions above would be to travel from there universe to are universe ( note that since there laws of physics are diffrent this may be possible, while in this universe it is not (until further notice)) and what effects this would have on us ?

According Higgs mechaism origin of mass is result of breaking of symmetry. According principle of Mach origin of mass is result of influence all the rest of Universe. Contradict each other Higgs mechanism and Mach principle? For example, mass of proton 938,27 Mev.Why? Who can give more convincing answer?

Hilbert space is a tool used to mathematically identify properties of matter that are hidden to other types of analysis. In my understanding it is similar to a regular euclid space that includes all limits of all functions within its boundaries. I can understand why an orthonormal basis is applicable to the notion of a Hilbert space, but I have a question. How can the relative position of two separate objects be determined, if the Hilbert space does not extend beyond the boundaries of the two objects themselves? That is, in a Hilbert space containing two separate objects, is the space between them required to accept an orthonormal basis as well? Thanks!

Is the real projective plane in any physical models? What is the difference between projective space and hilbert space; why is hilbert space preferred for physics? The first question came out a little unclear, to rephrase: do physicists use the real projective plane to describe phenomena? Why/why not?

Gerardus 't Hooft in his Nobel Lecture "A Confrontation with Infinity" did some important comment about applicability of differential equations: "The mathematics of differential equations grew out of this and nowadays it such a central element in theotetical physics that we often do not realize how important and how non-trivial these observations actually were.In modern theories of physics we send distances and time intervals to zero all the time also in multidimensional field theories,assuming that the philosopy of differential equations applies".p.360 "I have this critical note.As string theory makes heavy use of differential equations it is clear that some s…

On the thread: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34700 i guoted my letter to Nobel Laureat Stewen Weinberg with question "If space is discrete and time is continue,4-dimensional space-time lost its sense?" and his short answer "Yes". When i read other Nobel Laureat Gerardus t' Hooft Lecture( see my thread: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34730) and his doubt about power of Calculus on small distances i have question "If space is discrete and time is continue....how about ds/dt ? Also become meaningless?" I used binary code for signify discrete and continue, see my thread:http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.ph…

In the nuclearreactor we use heavy water as the moderater. Is there any alternative for the moderaters???

"Physicist. Philosopher. Poet. Visionary. Guru. John Archibald Wheeler, who died April 13 at age 96, wore all of these hats in his efforts to penetrate the nature of ultimate reality."(New Scientist,April 15,2008) I would like reminding couple quotations from John Wheeler: "Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it - in a decade, a century, or a millennium - we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How could we have been so stupid?" "Some day a door will surely open and expose the glittering central mechanism of the world in its beauty and simplicity." (Gravitation,p.1197) FIrst quotation wide sp…

I'm curious to see how many people here think we will never achieve the Theory of Everything (TOE). I think it's quite plausible. In fact I can think of may reason why we couldn't find it; our intelligence is too limited, our maths are too limited, we're unable to collect enough information, we're unable to test some important theories or even worst, the TOE of everything might not even exist.

General relativity is premised on the Einstein Equivalence Principle wedding Newton's equivalence of inertial and gravitatinal mass with special relativity. One result is that particles not subject to an external force follow geodesics, where the geodesic is fully determied by the initial conditions; the tangent vectors of displacement and velocity. So rather, instead, one can begin with geodesics as the 'fundemental premise', where inertial and gravitation mass become two names for the same gravitational charge. Generalizing on geodesics, I'm would be temped to say "World lines are completely determined by the initial conditions; the tangent vectors of dis…

Matvei Bronstein's 1935 work on quantum gravity, the first in-depth study of the problem, is analyzed in the context of the history of physics and the scientist's career. Bronstein's analysis of field measurability revealed "an essential difference between quantum electrodynamics and the quantum theory of the gravitational field" and showed that general relativity and quantum theory are fundamentally difficult to unify. Featured in the story are Plank, Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli, Rosenfeld, Landau, and Bohr. The methodological uniqueness of the quan*tum gravity problem is discussed. http://people.bu.edu/gorelik/cGh_Bronstein_UFN-200510_Engl.htm

Does anyone know the highest loop order (certain) processes in QED and/or the standard model have been calculated? I suspect it is not very high (~4 maybe?), but does anyone know what is "claimed" and what is in the literature? Of course, one would not expect to see any "new phenomena" past one loop unless one were to sum over all loops. So my question, is really about the technical exercise and what people have put themselves through! Cheers.

This could be difficult and tedious to follow as a result of the lack of proper terms on my part , so please bare with me. I’d like to know if it is possible for a mathematical constraint to be the cause of emergent properties or self organisation. (1)Lets say that you have an infinite number of points on a boundless 2D plane. The distance between any two points is a 1D line/string, and is related by a probability curve. This curve is , where x > 0; x is Distance and y is Probability (The first quadrant half of a Hyperbola). It is my understanding that there can be structure within infinity. An example of this is that in a hypothetical, infinite and unbound…

The antimatter thread at Astronomy & Cosmology reminded me of something. Specifically, why is the creation of heavy particles like W bosons and such favored over photons in high energy annihilations? Is there some sort of energy limit after which all net energy can't just be "dumped" into photons?

Currently doing Nuclear physics this semester and have a whole booklet of questions for homework and what little spare class time we have. Stuck on 1 of them, dont understand how im meant to get the answer (which ill put in brackets after the question.) Also, ill write the isotopes with the atomic number before the element then the mass number after it... couldnt find the sub/super script buttons A Sulfur nucleus 33S16 disintegrates by ejecting a proton 1H1, leaving behind a phosphorus necleus 32P15. If 9.24MeV energy is liberated as kinetic energy that drives the two fragments apart, how much of the energy goes into each particle? (Answer - 8.661MeV for proton an…

One of the ways to reduce the yield of Tsar Bomba from 100Mt to 50Mt was the replacement of the depleted uranium tamper with a lead tamper. As some of you might know this was because while U-238 is not fissile it is fissionable with the high energy neutrons from the fusion reaction. This made me wonder; How much uranium can you actually wrap around a thermonuclear weapon to increase its yield? It's pretty scary actually since it doesn't just increase the yield but also contributes quite a bit to the resulting fallout.

I thought you might like to know..... Subject: PRESS RELEASE : CERN announces start-up date for LHC PR06.08 - 07.08.2008 CERN announces start-up date for LHC Geneva, 7 August 2008. CERN* has today announced that the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be made on 10 September. This news comes as the cool down phase of commissioning CERN’s new particle accelerator reaches a successful conclusion. Television coverage of the start-up will be made available through Eurovision. The LHC is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, an…

I just completed some reading on ADS and Black Hole Complimentary and while the discussion seems to wrap up what an observer above the horizon will observe the discussion about the observer passed through seem a little inadequate. To say that someone falling through the horizon will perceive nothing seems wrong. Wouldn’t matter that fell through before you be red shifted as it accelerates away from you and wouldn’t matter that comes in after you be red shifted as you raced away from it, while matter that came through with you would be blue shifted as it races toward you? And how does time dilation come into play with matter that precedes and follows you across the…

The adjective NONCONFORMIST has 2 senses: 1. not conforming to some norm or socially approved pattern of behavior or thought 2. not conforming to established customs or doctrines especially in religion Does my approach in my threads is nonconformist?