Physics

I write fiction purely as a hobby. Typical fantasy presentation- quests, castles, dragons, swords, sorcery, spirits, elves, etc- but like to at least try basing those things on known scientific fact. My post on the intro thread has a more thorough disclaimer, as I'd rather not start every thread by explaining it's for literary research. That said, these questions are actually brainstorming for my story's magic system; the way I understand how tokamaks work is just an inspiration. I'm no physics expert, simply an enthusiast, especially plasma physics and electromagnetism. I'll still probably fudge quite a bit to make the story work. And yes, I'm sure a lot of the info I wa…

This is a report that I have created outlining the physics involved with the flight of the Frisbee, any feedback is appreciated.

So, my father has recently taken a (very skeptical) interest in science, specifically physics and cosmology. Based on what he has seen from the various documentaries and reading he has done, he cannot grasp how Newtonian time can be incorrect in the sense that bending space with gravity affects the passage of time. In his mind, time is necessarily constant and unchanging, and since time itself is not a particle (which it might be; you know gravitons and all that) it absolutely cannot be acted upon by particles which exert gravity. He cites his own logical deductions such as "100 years before the big bang was still 100 years before the big bang, whether or not there was an…

I searched and found nothing, but it might be under a different name. If this is the wrong forum, please move it. No worries.

Okay, first off i'm not 100% sure this is the correct place for this question. If it isn't, please can it be moved to where it should be. Thanks Anyway, I have a few questions relating to writing project I'm working on: basically a story about a mission to Mars with a space ship that uses EM-Drive technology as it's propulsion. I have tried my best to figure this out myself but I can't seem to make sense of it, so I figured this was the best place to find people who could either help to solve it, or at least explain it to me (I hope). My questions are (with the assumption that the EM-Drive actually works in large-scale and that its power-to-thrust ratio hold…

do anyone know why an electron behave like a wave in wave-particle duality and behave like a particle when observing. i know the answer but just asking to get info from others. have fun thinking about it.........

So, in einstein's theory, gravity is simply a geometric distortion between dimension. So if it so not a force, then howcome there are still theories about the force expanding the universe vs the force of gravity pulling it back one day? Do these theories just ignore relativity?

Could time possibly have a particle ?

Hi All, During a recent university interview i was asked : You are walking with a cup of tea and have to abruptly stop, state which direct your tea would spill in and tell us why? To which i replied : Newtons first law states that an object will remain stationary or in uniform motion until a resultant force is acted upon it. With this is mind whilst walking with the cup full of tea it is in fact you that is in motion not the tea. There fore it will remain stationary until a resultant force is acted upon. As you come to an abrupt stop there is a resultant force present, and due to the molecular arrangement of the cup the cup its self will almost instantan…

I was reading through the wiki on LED lighting because my workplace is replacing many light bulbs in the warehouse and I was interested in how they could maximise capital while also reducing waste. Reading through the comparison charts, I came across this quote below it : I tried to wrap my head around the word explanation for the mathematics describing what PF is, but failed. However keeping in mind that my lack of understanding of the topic is a recognised bias, the prior paragraph appears to me to be false information. How does Cu usage increase, when the infrastructure is already in place? If not then the alternative is they mean Cu is depleted overtime fro…

Hi all, Just really a theory of mine that i need clarifying: So when we hear cars driving past us it is not the engine we hear, but in fact the friction caused by the tires and the road. When you think of the amount of high speed traffic passing through main motorways, surely we should be able to harness this "wasted" energy and put it to use in a heat engine of some description by running some kind of fluid under the road close enough to be heated. I am unsure of the amount of energy wasted but i am sure it is much more than negligible. So who's with me ?

What can cause disentanglement of the system. Could it happen even random?

Does the absorption and emission spectrum for some element are the same .Do the molecules and atoms emit in the same spectrum they absorb em radiation? If yes how we can explain black color since black materials obviously absorb all the incoming light and re emit it in some other wavelenght ?

0 down vote favorite Can you see sound wave propagating trhough very hot air (500 -1000 degree celcius ) Why so much ? To be more distinguishable than a natural emitters since everything we know emits some radiation if it is over absoulute zero temperature.So if you look at the air by infrared or even microwave camera. I suppose that somebody will see direclty the propagation of the changing pressure as acoustic wave. If we can imagine for instance how it looks sound propagating in water and we can directly see the changes of pressure so it should be the same case with the air. But it is difficult to see the sound wave direclty with a naked eye as air is transperant fo…

No need of long electrodynamic tethers and so will enable a small foot print and low maintenance costs. No need of power to run current through the tethers at all times to boost orbital velocity since we are already charged. How viable is my proposal?

Hello I have a few basic questions regarding the elastic collisions of particles. Basically my questions are: "are collisions between subatomic particles, for example: electrons, perfectly elastic?". Also: "are they perfectly elastic all of the time?" and finally regarding any answer I get "is there actual data, for example: from particle collider experiments, that actually proves / or supports this?". Thank you.

I'm not sure which sub-section would be most suitable for his topic, so feel free to relocate it if appropriate. I've been reading about the false vacuum on Wikipedia, but I'm having trouble getting my head around the details (it sucks being uneducated). If I'm understanding correctly, one of the aspects mentioned was that if we live in a metastable false vacuum, the true vacuum would have different laws of physics, which would mean our current laws of chemistry and therefore biology would be quite different. Is that right? That's one the points I'm having trouble comprehending, how would a lower vacuum state (if I'm using the term correctly) mean different…

To avoid confusion, I understand what gravitational waves are and I am convinced that they were detected. I am not questioning the detection of gravity waves. LIGO did detect gravity waves as they passed through earth. What I want to know is how did they know that it was the collision of two black holes that caused those gravity waves to form. I mean after all there are other ginormous objects in space whose collisions can also cause gravity waves, two neutron stars colliding into each other. So how do they know that the waves that LIGO found, where from 2 Black Holes colliding together and nothing else.

Saw a video today about 3d printed magnets with custom magnetic fields. Thought it looked pretty cool.http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160324-revolutionary-3d-printed-magnets-by-correlated-magnetics-can-change-engineering.html

ahem... anyways, If asked the question (in the context of black holes and gravity), Well... how can you?? How could you.. Blackholes are traditionally described as 'spacetime curvature so drastic not even light can escape it'; that's where the idea of black holes came from, before gravitons were even proposed Gravitons, as bosons, are violating some rules (don't worry, I'm confident new rules will be invented as placeholder 'exceptions' to previous rules) such as bosons passing through other bosons typically (I'm not an expert, but google told me gluons interact with each other by some mechanism, so maybe some bosons do interact with each other *shrug*). I…

We know things in free fall are weightless. We know in a way that the Moon is in free-fall around the Earth. Only since the moon is travelling sideways at the same rate at which the earth is bending away from it, it never hits ground. However it is still free-fall. 1) So is the moon weightless? If it is, then if there are (say) astronauts on the moon, then they too are in freefall along with the moon. So would those astronauts weigh anything? If we extend it then the Earth is effectively also in freefall around the sun in the same way that moon is around earth, then is Earth weightless too? If not why not? 2) If the earth is weightless, as its in freefall, then humans …

We all know that SOUND is a wave but sound waves cannot transmit through glass if LIGHT is a wave then how can they transmit through glass so can we say that light is a particle. please explain...

Is it true that there is no experimental proof that anti-matter is attracted by gravity?

Just like how a jet engine uses the air it moves through to propel it self forward. In this case energy for ionizing the propellant won't be needed because we already have ions. How viable is my proposal?

Two conical opposite sign charged bodies are placed in a hollow circular cylindrical charged body where they experience a one directional force at all points. What physics law will it be violating? Please you can follow this link containing the excerpt from the patent https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298017787_ENERGY_PRODUCTION_FROM_ROTARY_MOTION_OF_CHARGED_BODY_INTERACTIONS