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Showing posts with the label physcis

The Higgs… and Other Things as Related by Fighter-Ace Turned Journalist Michael Gladych

Scientific research in post-war America during the 1950s and ‘60s as seen through the eyes and life of ace fighter pilot turned science journalist, Michael Gladych, reveals a time when scientific possibilities were grander and fairly dripped with the promise of sci-fi style adventure.    Michael Gladych enters our story in the “The Hunt for Zero Point” , the fringe physics classic, by Nick Cook:  “The strapline below the headline proclaimed: "By far the most potent source of energy is gravity. Using it as power, future aircraft will attain the speed of light." It was written by one Michael Gladych…” Gladych, portrayed by Cook as merely the random author of a science journalism article , (figure 1), rapidly fades from the story amidst numerous claims of government and aerospace industry conspiracies to cover-up the ‘true’ anti-gravity programs of the 1950s. Ironically, Gladych is a far more interesting, and ‘true-to-life’ character than any of the...

Binary Math Lessons: The Secret Origin

Unschooling?  How did my last post have anything to do with unschooling?  As soon as I saw the title on the screen, I cringed.  The benefits of binary math, check, anything to do with unschooling?  Nada. As it turns out, I’d started in the middle of the story.  Our six year-old, No. 1, and I started heading towards binary math—in more proper unschooling form—because she wandered into the room one day and said, “Dad, I want to learn what you do at work.” All I do at work is test machines whose sole job it is to move ones and zeroes around: microprocessors and other digital devices also known as computer chips in the vernacular.  So, since one and zero are pretty simple concepts, and as it turns out, the logic gate building blocks of digital devices are also really simple, off we went! The first thing we need to nail down were the handful of logic gates I encounter.  What’s a logic gate you ask?  It’s just an electrical embodiment of...

Kinetic Energy Lowering, Covalent bonds,and the Theory of Hole Superconductivity

My review of the material I mentioned yesterday [1] paid off pretty quickly.  Dr. Hirsch is quick to point out that one of the key differences between his 'hole theory of superconductivity'[4] and the more typical explanation of Cooper pair formation is that his theory predicts kinetic energy lowering after two holes in an energy band pair as opposed to the usual potential energy lowering after two electrons pair . While reading Hirsch's articles, I didn't remember ever coming across kinetic energy lowering pairing before.  It turned out that I had read about it in Dr. Likharev's notes , (see section 2.6, 'Coupled Quantum Wells'), but without an immediate application for the information, I promptly forgot it. Here are the basics 1.  Crystalline materials, (like superconductors, or semiconductors), in which electrons reside can be very roughly modeled as repeated delta function wells, (picture 1)[2] where the delta functions represent the potentia...

Springtime in Colorado and Ice Formation

We're on the road today, so I may not get the chance to do a full post.  Elaine mentioned the other day that it had been awhile since I'd put any pictures up here, so for today's short, but hopefully pretty and interesting post, here are the lake ice formations from Lefthand Reservoir near Ward, CO.  These are springtime pictures taken in March of 2010 and the lake ice was at least a foot thick.  Towards  the end, you'll find a video of Maya the swimming super dog as a sweetener!  Don't worry, she's not swimming in the ice water, she's in Long Island Sound near Sound Beach, NY, a mere four miles from Wardenclyffe and ten or so miles form Brookhaven National Laboratory. First, the setting.  Here's a topo map of the lake.  It sits at an altitude of about 10,600 feet roughly, 40 miles outside of Boulder, CO and immediately outside of Ward, CO. View Larger Map The lake itself and it's surroundings are gorgeous.  Here's a little sample. ...

More on Benchtop Gravitational Redshift Measurements and Schleich's Talk Today

By the end of the day today, I'll have two practice presentations for the APS TX Section meeting this weekend that I'd really appreciate any feedback on, I'll be building them between some pretty cool meetings today.  Here's some more on one of the meetings... I get to see Dr. Schleich's talk on his gravitational red shift vs. gravitational accelerometer calculation[3][4] with respect to the KC interferometer, (picture 1), [2].  The authors of KC interferometer experiment claimed that it measured the gravitational redshift, or time dilation due to curved space time.  In his PRL paper, Dr. Schelich points out that by analyzing the KC interferometer by looking at the commutators of it's time evolution operators, one can avoid choosing a representation and show that the shift in phase of the atoms in the KC interferometer is due to the acceleration of the atom caused by the gravitational potential, and not due to the gravitational red s...

Use the Calculus Luke!

Yeah for Google+!!!  After posting yesterday's missive about figuring out the origin of the secant squared term, mathematician extraordinare and Google+er  +John Baez  pointed out to me that the derivative of tangent is secant squared and that I need not have fussed so much with the geometry.  John said: I wouldn't  call the introduction of sec^2(θ) a "substitution".  Introducing θ in the first place counts as a substitution, since you're trying to simplify an integral by replacing some other variable with this one.   But it's just a mathematical fact that the derivative of tanθ is sec^2(θ), so d tan(θ) = sec^2(θ) dθ I would use this equation automatically and unthinkingly, but it looks like you're trying to find a geometrical explanation of this equation.  If you're figuring it out for yourself because nobody told you the derivative of tan(θ) is sec^2(θ), that's very laudable!  The standard approach is to express tan in terms of sin and...

Four Potentials and EM Gauge Transformations

The cool thing I saw in EM yesterday.  So, we all know that you have freedom to choose the vector and scalar potential within a set of rules.  What I hadn't seen before, was the rules written down in a concise form next to each other: If you look at the two right hand terms and then think of the two potentials making a four potential ala special relativity,  you arrive at a much simpler way to memorize the rule for selecting gauges.  You can change either potential by the gradient of a scalar field as long as you compensate the other potential by adjusting the other potential with the negative of the gradient of the scalar field in its 'dimension', (time vs. space/scalar vs. vector). Is there a more fundamental point we should get from this as well? Picture of the Day: From 1/18/13

DeBroglie Waves and Propagation of Mass

This starts a new series of posts that will hopefully inspire discussion among folks taking, teaching, and/or using quantum mechanics.  If you're reading this on Google+, the equations are referenced in the album attached to the post. Did you know that DeBroglie came up with the concept of matter waves considering relativistic invariance? I didn't until quantum I lecture yesterday. Does anyone know how the reasoning went? I can see a way to make sense of it. If you look at energy being equal to, (eq. 1) and think about frequency as the reciprocal variable of time in a Fourier transform, then, if you begin to consider momentum, (the other three components of the energy momentum four vector of special relativity), you soon thereafter could arrive at, (eq. 2) where k is the reciprocal variable of the x, y, and z space coordinates in a Fourier transform. In the same lecture, it was mentioned that the simple form of a sound wave could propagate energy but not mass....