### Proper Velocity!!! and Getting Index Notation Worked Out: EM II Notes 2014_09_09

Summary:  It looks like I'll finally get a good understanding of the gamma notation for moving proper velocities to lab velocities and back.  It'll be nice to know it inside and out, but a little irksome given all that can be done with the hyperbolic notation we're not using.  I want to maintain my fluency in both.

There may be a subtle second notation for inverted Lorentz transforms.  As it turns out, the subtle notation difference of moving around indices in the top and the bottom with spaces is meant to keep track of which index comes first when you go back to side by side notation.

First, we cover Lorentz transforms, (which are not in fact tensors), and contractions and arrive at the interesting result in equation 1.99:

$\Lambda^\mu_\rho \Lambda^\sigma_\mu T^\rho_\sigma = \delta^\sigma_\rho T^\rho_\sigma$

Which indicates the transpose of the Lorentz transform times itself follows a sort of orthogonality rule making use of contravariant indices.

Q:  Does this obviate the need for the $\eta$ metric?

A:  But wait!  There's so much more!  This is a way to write things without the $\eta$ cruising through everywhere, but it also explains the oddball spacing of the indices.  Maybe I just don't remember this from MacConnel?  First, the Lorentz transform is not a tensor.  Now, we hve that down.  The next bit is how to arrive at the above expression.

$\eta_{\mu\nu} \Lambda^\mu_{\;\rho} \Lambda^\nu_{\;\sigma} = \eta_{\rho\sigma}$

The next step is to plow the $\eta$ on the l.h.s. in and lower the $\nu$ on the second transform.

$\Lambda^\mu_{\;\rho} \Lambda_{\mu\sigma} = \eta_{\rho\sigma}$

We then raise the sigma

$\eta^{\sigma\lambda} \Lambda^\mu_{\;\rho} \Lambda_{\mu\sigma} = \eta^{\sigma\lambda}\eta_{\rho\sigma}$

$\eta^{\sigma\lambda} \Lambda^\mu_{\;\rho} \Lambda_{\mu\sigma} = \eta_\rho^\lambda = \delta_\rho^\lambda$

$\Lambda^\mu_{\;\rho} \Lambda^{\;\lambda}_\mu = \eta_\rho^\lambda = \delta_\rho^\lambda$

Now, since we can see that the first two indices are $\mu$s, we can call the above statement a transpose.  The index locations matter to get the transpose to be a transpose, making sure the rows and columns are handled properly.

NOTE:  This doe arise in MacConnel.  His notation is slightly different.  Instaed of $\Lambda^\mu_{\;\rho}$, he writes $\Lambda^\mu_{.\rho}$

We're going to need the delLambertian soon and it's important to note that it is

$\Box = -\partial_0\partial_0 + \partial_i\partial_i = \partial^\mu \partial_\mu$

A few notes follow on why the D'Alambertian is written with one index up and one down.  It has to do with the negative sign in the first entry of the Minkowski metric.  As it turns out, the index up version of the Kronecker delta is the same as the index down version, but not so for $\eta$ because of the $-1$ $00$ entry.  This is all much simpler if you never start writing your indices in the 'wrong' location in the first place.

OK, now for the interesting stuff.  First, with the choice of signature for the Minkowski metric here, we wind up having to write down $d\tau$ as \

$d\tau = -ds^2 = dt^2 - dx^2 - dy^2 - dz^2$

Given $d\tau$ we define the four velocity to be

$U^\mu = \dfrac{dx^\mu}{d\tau}$

Which is technically mixing frames, but then, that's what proper velocity does.  Intersting that we're starting with four velocity, proper velocity here.  It's really nice to get this out of the way early on and benefit from it.

Picture of the Day
Presenting the Takeno metric line element.  Hopefully one of the payoffs of all this will be understanding this more fully, and possibly using it to explain the circular Unruh effect.  However, a far more productive use is in explaining the Thomas Precession.

### Cool Math Tricks: Deriving the Divergence, (Del or Nabla) into New (Cylindrical) Coordinate Systems

The following is a pretty lengthy procedure, but converting the divergence, (nabla, del) operator between coordinate systems comes up pretty often. While there are tables for converting between common coordinate systems, there seem to be fewer explanations of the procedure for deriving the conversion, so here goes!

What do we actually want?

To convert the Cartesian nabla

to the nabla for another coordinate system, say… cylindrical coordinates.

What we’ll need:

1. The Cartesian Nabla:

2. A set of equations relating the Cartesian coordinates to cylindrical coordinates:

3. A set of equations relating the Cartesian basis vectors to the basis vectors of the new coordinate system:

How to do it:

Use the chain rule for differentiation to convert the derivatives with respect to the Cartesian variables to derivatives with respect to the cylindrical variables.

The chain rule can be used to convert a differential operator in terms of one variable into a series of differential operators in terms of othe…

### Lab Book 2014_07_10 More NaI Characterization

Summary: Much more plunking around with the NaI detector and sources today.  A Pb shield was built to eliminate cosmic ray muons as well as potassium 40 radiation from the concreted building.  The spectra are much cleaner, but still don't have the count rates or distinctive peaks that are expected.
New to the experiment?  Scroll to the bottom to see background and get caught up.
Lab Book Threshold for the QVT is currently set at -1.49 volts.  Remember to divide this by 100 to get the actual threshold voltage. A new spectrum recording the lines of all three sources, Cs 137, Co 60, and Sr 90, was started at approximately 10:55. Took data for about an hour.
Started the Cs 137 only spectrum at about 11:55 AM

Here’s the no-source background from yesterday
In comparison, here’s the 3 source spectrum from this morning.

The three source spectrum shows peak structure not exhibited by the background alone. I forgot to take scope pictures of the Cs137 run. I do however, have the printout, and…

### Unschooling Math Jams: Squaring Numbers in their own Base

Some of the most fun I have working on math with seven year-old No. 1 is discovering new things about math myself.  Last week, we discovered that square of any number in its own base is 100!  Pretty cool!  As usual we figured it out by talking rather than by writing things down, and as usual it was sheer happenstance that we figured it out at all.  Here’s how it went.

I've really been looking forward to working through multiplication ala binary numbers with seven year-old No. 1.  She kind of beat me to the punch though: in the last few weeks she's been learning her multiplication tables in base 10 on her own.  This became apparent when five year-old No. 2 decided he wanted to do some 'schoolwork' a few days back.

"I can sing that song... about the letters? all by myself now!"  2 meant the alphabet song.  His attitude towards academics is the ultimate in not retaining unnecessary facts, not even the name of the song :)

After 2 had worked his way through the so…