Modern and Theoretical Physics

I have been doing some analysis work on isotope data, and got some results which dont seem to appear in the literature. I attach an extract from my findings Any comments please?

I came across an intriguing quote from Betrand Russell written in the mid 1930's. "An atom is now merely a convenient way of grouping certain occurences; it is convenient, up to a point, to think of the atom as a nucleus with attendant electrons, but the electrons at one time cannot be identified with those at another, and in any case no modern physicist thinks of them as 'real.'" Is this truly the current view of an electron? I ask because I have wondered for some time if the constants associated with electrons (electric charge of −1.602E−19 C, mass of 9.11E−31 kg) are "fixed". In other words, are these "universal constants" associated with some theory, are t…

As a pseudo-Physicist (if you prefer “want to be”), I have spent my adult life mining multi-dimensional information. I have worked my way through a number of books on the topics of special & general relativity, quantum mechanics, entanglement, string theory, M theory, expansionist cosmology and cyclical cosmology and I feel utterly unfulfilled. The reason stems from what appears to be exponential complexity when attempting unification of Quantum Theory with Gravity. The symmetry of the universe and a symmetrical set of rules that govern it seems to be a good starting point. From a logical perspective the introduction of mathematical constructs that result in spat…

I was recently reading a few articles about String Theory, and how it's 'permanently safe' because it cannot be tested. This bothers me in a way, because it's not really science if it can't be tested. I thought about this a little, but unfortunately I don't know enough of physics to really get anywhere, but what possible experiments can be done to prove String Theory. Apparently the problem is in: A. How small strings are B. The massive distances Does anyone have any ideas on how it can be tested/experiment-ified?

'The enigmatic electron' by McGregor deals extensively with the various ways of measuring electron radius. 'Composite fermions' by Jain shows what can be done by distorting the shape. 'The ideas of particle physics' by Coughlan, Dodd and Gripaios. and 'Facts and mysteries in Elementary particle physics' by Veltman give a clear explanation of current knowledge. I do not think Bertrand Russell would make the same statement today.

I just realized that if photon's really do have rest mass of exactly 0, then they should be able to travel faster than light (yeah, I know photon's are light, but work with me here). Because as I understand, the reason that nothing can travel faster than light (unless it has an imaginary mass, AKA Tachyons) is because as an object approaches the speed of light or C, its mass increases and to actually accelerate to the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy. This is the forula used; M= M0 / sqrt (1-V2/C2) Note: The "2"s are squared signs So if an ordinary object is applied to this formula, at the speed of light it becomes something divided by z…

Starting from the assumptions of associativity and distributivity, i have constructed a new field out of an existing field. Next i have put them into matrices. It appairs that the basic building-blocks consist of a matrix, together with a index. I have done some calculations on these indeces and it shows that if one assumes that each buiding-block is a summation over g other building-blocks, then the dimension of the bosonic-string (26) and the super-string (10) appear quit naturraly. As one might know the target space in string theory is a bosonic-space. I think i have discovered the origin of string theory and its lays in the 26 dimensional space. Because the t…

Well, Im a 20 year old guy, and I really love reading all I can on two fields, that being physics and biology (although my main passion is mathematics). I still never really got to understand how time could have "started". Are there any good hypothesis on this? I mean, time had to have started at some point, so let's call this t=0. Obviously, there can be nothing before t=0 since time is absolute. So what really got it going? I was thinking of this today, and the only idea I myself can come up with that time could be more related to what mathematically is a limit. Thinking backwards, maybe we would never arrive at t=0, but it could approach it. T…

An interesting paper as appeared on the arXiv under "popular physics". "So what will you do if string theory is wrong?" Authors: Moataz H. Emam Emam argues that even if string theory is one day shown not be a model of nature, then it will survive somewhere in between physics and mathematics. It will be too much like maths for the physicists and too much like physics for the mathematicians. There are just too many nice mathematical results to simply throw string theory away. On the physics side, there may well be one saving point. The AdS/CFT correspondence allows us to identify perturbative but non-physical string theories with perturbative, but (possibly) …

I have been under the idea that experiments either shows the wave nature or particle nature of things, never both at the same time. I recently watched a shows called "The Mechanical Universe" in which a professor demonstrates an experiment with light and Polaroid. He explains the phenomenon in which no light passes through two cascaded polaroid lenses, polarized perpendicular to each other. He then turns the second lens at an angle of 45 degrees, and now some light passes through. He says: ".. It is very easy to understand so long as we believe that light is a wave. But remember, light is also a particle, and there must be a particle explanation of how this occur…

It occured to me that the common view that nothing can escape from beyond a black hole's event horizon is actually not entirely true, or at least is not necessarily true. The first thing that can obviously escape from a black hole (assuming they exist) are gravitons, I don't think an explanation is needed for that one. The second thing that would have no problem escaping from a black hole (again, assuming they exist) is negative matter, since negative matter is repelled by gravity, it would actually be impossible for it to even reach the event horizon of a black hole; is it just me or would what we think of as a black hole seem indistinguishable from a white hole to anyth…

Hello, Does anyone know of spontaneous hydrogen propagation in a vacuum? I would love to know any ideas about how this occurs, theoretically. I would ultimately like to do my own experimentation upon this. Just wondering if anyone has heard of this, and direction towards any resources please. Thank you!

These people who think that the LHC is gonna destroy the Earth are clearly not using any sort of common sense whatsoever. Every day, the Earth is impacted with countless cosmic rays which are thousands of times more powerful than anything we are going to create in the LHC, and even if they think that any black holes or strangelets which are created by cosmic rays have enough velocity to escape the Earth's gravity, so what? Let's for argument's sake assume that Stephen Hawking is wrong about black holes evaporating, and that any micro-black holes formed by cosmic rays are perfectly stable. If that were the case then the universe should be teeming with hundreds of tril…

The Multiverse Subatomic matter behaves very differently to larger masses. One example of this estranged behavior is called the 'double slit experiment' introduced by physicist Thomas Young in 1805. This experiment consists of a machine that shoots a beam of photons, electrons or even atoms towards film screen - but before the particles reach the screen and leaves tiny marks, it needs to pass through either an upper slit, or a lower slit that are closely separated. Each slit can be closed, or both can be left opened by the choice of the observer. Now, when the beam of particles hit the screen, you would suppose the particles had to pass through either the upper …

In the 1920’s, quantum mechanics worked well with molecules and atoms… this was because they had a finite number of degrees of freedom. However, whenever we worked with the electromagnetic force, all that was result was erroneous calculations, because the electromagnetic field was infinite within its own degrees of freedom; in other words, two degrees of freedom in any point in spacetime. We envision these points as being oscillators, each with its own position and momentum. It turned out that the oscillators could never be at rest because that would defy the Uncertainty Principle… Instead, the oscillators where assigned with zero-point fluctuations and even a non-zer…

I've always thought that speed through space was inversely proportional to speed through time, and vice versa. In other words the faster you move through through space, the slower you move through time. Is this analogy really true? I mean, it's true as you approach the speed of light, but is it also true for all speeds?

I recently read in The Counter Creationism Handbook, in response to "everything must have a cause, therefore the universe must have a cause" that certain exceptions to the rule exist. One example was that the process of radioactive decay is causeless. Can anyone who knows some physics please elaborate on this concept in layman's terms? How can radioactive decay have no cause? All of our common experience dictates everything has a cause. Also, does anyone know of any other exceptions to causality besides radioactive decay? thanks -ben

From what I've heard on this forum the typical nucleus surrounded by protons, electrons and such is not a good representation of an atom. So what is? I would like to see a picture, or drawing

Hi. This will seem quite silly to the erudite crowd but please read through. What if Mathematics is not the appropriate language to discover the true nature of the world we observe? It seems evident that current theories reliant on classical math are hitting up agains a barrier of "unity" and are unable to proceed further. I suspect this is because classical math is fundamentally binary in nature. It was developed to describe the world at a visual, observable scale and it did so with extraordinary success. However, what if a non-binary or non-discrete method is developed to cope with the probelm? An analog-math as opposed to a binary-math perhaps. A system akin to an…

features Brian Cox, lots of shots of parts of LHC a bit hyper bubbling over with enthusiasm, but why not?

where do these "strings of energies" keep getting their energy from since they they are using energy to vibrate. I dont a lot about strings so this Q might sound naive.

What causes the shape of a Lichtenberg figure? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichtenberg_figure

Okay So as I understand it,the number three reason to settle the moon (industry and tourism are #1 and #2) is the recovery of Helium 3 by settlers with funky combines out there on the sea of tranquility harvesting the lunar soil for the precious helium isotope - this is a product of the Sun's fusion reaction that is not found on earth as it too easily blends into our atmosphere - but on the moon it becomes trapped in the lunar regolith of the moon dust which is a meter thick in places. This rare and valuable element isotope is the proposed main ingredient in fusion energy, yet there is very little on Earth. Question - how far along are scientists with fusion react…

I recently learned in physics class that in an electromagnetic field, the magnetic field is always perpendicular to the electric field. But I don't under stand how that is possible, because the two fields are obviously both three dimensional. Geometry 101, it is not possible for two three dimensional entities to be truly perpendicular to each other unless there is a higher dimension involved. At best, the only way to position two 3D entities perpendicular is to have a gap in between. How then are electromagnetic fields perpendicular?

Field theories (at least in within my limited ability to comprehend them) operate on space as if it were continuous. The standard model (I think) goes into this category. A new group of theories models space as a discrete structure in the form of an evolving set of relationships. These structures take the form of spin networks or spin foam. Loop quantum gravity goes into this category. BUT! As I understand it, a new class of theories has sprung up modeling space as something between these two extremes. I'm not really sure where to classify these approaches in my head, but they've been described as modeling space as something like a fractal. If the above i…