QUESTION:
Today my wife placed two identical jars
in our microwave. Both were open and filled
with the same amount of water at the same
temperature. The jars were placed directly
across from one another, approximately
halfway to the edge of the rotating glass
plate. One jar began to actively boil, while
the other jar did not. About 30 seconds
later the water in the non-boiling jar burst
explosively into a full boil. She shut off
the microwave and had to wipe down the
entire inside. What could possibly explain
this unexpected result?
ANSWER:
Water at atmospheric pressure normally
boils at 100°C. But to boil, bubbles of
water vapor must form; these bubbles
normally form in existing tiny air bubbles
or around microscopically small impurities
in the water and are called nucleation
points. Water with few nucleation points can
get hotter than 100°C and is called
superheated water. Superheated water is
quite unstable so when one bubble of vapor
starts to form it expands very rapidly and
the result looks like an explosion like your
wife witnessed.

QUESTION:
What kind of equipment would I
theoretically need to build a time machine?
I'm writing a novel based on the subject.
ANSWER:
A
DeLorean, a
flux capacitor, and a
Mr. Fusion. I hope you get the joke
here; if not, google Back to the Future,
a trilogy of movies. I hope that you
don't think I am ridiculing you, but there
is no good physics answer: the current laws
of physics forbid backward time travel but
you can travel forward in time by taking an
extremely long, very fast trip returning to
the place you started from (the
twin paradox). But you are writing a
novel and can let your imagination run wild!
QUESTION:
I once saw in a science museum,
experiment. They had a piece of thin metal
that connected to some kind of permanent
magnet, and the metal became red hot, and
fell awa, when it became red hot. The metal
was touching the magnet. I was wondering if
you could have two of those magnets,real
big, attract to each other almost all the
way. Then have two pieces of thin metal
become red hot, and you could then separate
the magnets. The exhibit did this over and
over, all day.
ANSWER:
The magnet holding up the metal is not a
permanent magnet but an electromagnet which
creates not a constant magnetic field but a
constantly changing (AC) field. Varying
magnetic fields induce varying electric
fields. The alternating electric fields
causes an electric current in the thin metal
and that current causes resistive heating in
the metal, just like AC currents in your
toaster heats up the wires. The reason that
the cool metal is held up is that it is
probably a ferromagnetic material which
becomes magnetized in an external magnetic
field and therefore is attracted to the
magnet. But this magnetization will not
happen at a temperature above some
temperature called the Curie temperature.
For iron this temperature is about 770 °C so
the hot metal will drop.
QUESTION:
I was wondering if you went deep in the
ocean, where there is a lot of pressure due
to the water, if you took a open container
down with you and closed it (air tight)
would it still have the same pressure
inside? And if you took it to the surface
would it still contain that pressure?
ANSWER:
I never thought about it, but I cannot
think why not. For example, suppose you take
the open container (full of water) to the
bottom of the Mariana trench where the
pressure is more than 1000 times atmospheric
pressure; the pressure inside and outside
the container is now 1000 atmospheres. Now
close the container and bring it up to put
the surface. There would be a gauge pressure
of about 999 atmosphers pushing out. It had
better a pretty strong container!

QUESTION:
How to calculate the downward force at
the weight 2, in grams, not inch grams and
(not torque).
ANSWER:
Your question has lots of problems. Is the
system in equilibrium? If so there needs to
be some other force present to keep it in
equilibrium, so where would that force be
applied? You ask "what is the force from the
weight at this angle" What weight? What
angle? Force on what by what? The pivot is
not at the center. Is the line connecting
the two masses to be considered weightless?
REPLY:
Do not want equalibriam, I want to know
what the downward force is under the 78
grams as if I had a scale under it. What
I calculate is not what the value I
physically measured. The angle is 90
degrees, parallel to earths gravity.
Consider the pivot point is at the
centre of the 2 weights.
(Not the way
you drew it. I will use the numbers on
your figure.) The Force is from
the heavier weight 78 gms.
(No it
isn't. Yes, the 78 gm weight does exert
a downward force on the line equal to
its weight, but that force is not what
your scale will read.) The line
connected to the 2 weights is
neglectable; I have calculated the line
and know has very little affect on the
system.
ANSWER:
You can't have it both ways. If you put
a scale under it, the scale holds it in
equilibrium and is therefore another force
on the seesaw. If you simply have it as you
have drawn it at rest and let it go it will
have an angular acceleration (even though it
is at rest at that instant); it is therefore
a little trickier to calculate.I will show
each way:
-
Equilibrium (with scale)

The net torque must be zero:
9.7x24+10.7x(F-78)=0, so F=(834.6-232.8)/10.7=56.2
grams
-
Nonequlibrium (free to rotate)

This is a little trickier so I will
switch to SI units (kg, m, s) shown in
green; N is Newtons (kg·m/s2).
There is a net torque about your pivot
which is τ=0.76x0.27-0.24x0.25=0.145
N·m. Note that I have chosen clockwise
to be positive. A torque causes an
angular acceleration α=τ/I
where I is the moment of
inertia about the axis about which τ
is calculated. Since the moment of
inertia of a point mass m a
distance r from the axis is
mr2, the moment of
inertia is I=0.0245x0.252+0.0775x0.272=0.0072
kg·m2 so α=20.2 s-2.
The linear acceleration is a=rα=0.27x20.2=5.5
m/s2, about half gravitational
acceleration. Now, you are interested in
the forces on your 78 gram mass. There
are two forces, the weight of 0.76 N
pointing down and the force F
which the bar exerts up; Using Newton's
second law, 0.76 -F=0.0775x5.5=0.33
N=33.7 gram (force). If there were a
massless scale attached to the bat, this
is what it would read at the instant you
released it.
QUESTION:
If photons of light are massless
(without mass) why are they constrained from
escaping a black hole's intense gravity?
ANSWER:
In classical physics an object which is
in a gravitational field is affected only if
it has mass. But, general relativity tells
us that massless particles do indeed see
gravitational fields. Very massive stars and
galaxies bend the paths of passing photons;
this is called gravitational lensing
and was first observed more than 100 years
ago. Now, think of throwing a ball straight
up giving it an initial energy of ½mv2;
because of gravity it loses its energy as it
goes up and, at some height it will have
lost all its kinetic energy. Now, consider a
photon in a very strong gravitational field.
As the photon moves away from the object
causing this field (black hole, for
example), it loses energy just like the ball
did. But, unlike the ball, it cannot lose
energy by slowing down because the speed of
light must always be a constant c.
The energy of a photon is given by E=hf
where f is the frequency of the
light and h is Planck's constant.
Since we can write f=c/λ where
λ is the wavelength, so the photon
loses energy by increasing its wavelength.
(This is called the gravitational red
shift.) So now, if the field is strong
enough the photon will lose all its energy
and simply be gone. But its energy is not
gone and contributes to the growth of the
mass of the black hole.
QUESTION:
Consider sitting in an airliner
traveling between cities. If a parakeet is
free inside the plane and lets go of, lets
say, the seat, and wants to simply fly
inside the plane…will the parakeet have to
begin flying faster and faster to remain
inside the aircraft unattached? What
happens?
ANSWER:
The bird flies relative to the air
inside the airplane. The inside air is at
rest relative to the airplane. The airplane
is not accelerating. Therefore it maies no
difference whether the airplane is going 600
milea per hour or sitting at rest at the
airport; the way that the bird flies is
identical in both situations.
QUESTION:
I'm thinking electromagnetic waves and
their propagation, and I'm having trouble
seeing how energy is transferred. In the
analogy with a string, I know that there is
a tension on the string enabled by the bonds
between the atoms of the string. I know how
energy can be stored and transferred through
these bond interactions. Back in the
electromagnetic field, what is it about the
field in one point of space that allows it
to transfer energy to the next point in
space? Referring to the analogy, what is the
analog for tension or atomic bonds in the
electromagnetic field? I feel certain that
what I'm asking for is either a facet of the
speed of light, or perhaps vacuum
permittivity, but I'm having a difficult
time fitting those concepts into my
understanding.
ANSWER:
Think about the electric field at some
point where the light is passing by. It is
capable of exerting a force on a charge
which might be there. The charge will
acquire kinetic energy as it is accelerated
by the field. Therefore the light must carry
energy. Another way to look at it is that
light may be thought of as photons which
have energy which they can transfer to
something else.
QUESTION:
I am a tennis pro, and have been a
tennis stringer for over 40yrs. I always
have had the idea that Sound (Musical Notes)
maybe more accurate then the pull weight
measured by the pound or kilo, on a
stringing machine, when stringing a racquet.
Is this feasible? I have strung a racquet by
using a guitar tuner to insure every string
plucked when pulled, hits the same note and
then clamped. Am I way off base and the
physics/math of weight vs sound, behind this
is wrong?
ANSWER:
The frequency f ("musicsl
note") of a vibrating string depends on
three things: the tension T in the
string, its length L, aad its mass
density μ. Mass density might be
measured as ounces per inch which depends on
the string you chose. The equation is f=[√(T/μ)]/(2L).
From all that I read, the strings should all
have the same tension. But the strings are
not all the same length, so they would not
have the same frequency (note). So yes, you
are "way off base"!
QUESTION:
Can increase in pressure inside a hollow
semi circular sphere or a paraboloid or
other half cut closed figure cause it to
produce lift?
ANSWER:
No. Why would you think that? There is
one way it could happen, but only with a
decrease of the pressure of the air inside
the container: If the weight of the
container and the air in it were smaller
than an equal volume of the air outside
(normal atmospheric pressure); this is just
Archimedes' principle. The reason a helium
balloon rises is because its weight is less
than the weight of air which it displaces.
QUESTION:
I have a question about time. Time on
earth moves at one rate. Satellites in orbit
operate in a slightly different time and
have to be updated to maintain accuracy. If
I travelled to Mars to live what would be
the time difference between the people on
earth and the people on Mars? Would people
age differently on the different planet.
ANSWER:
The difference between rates of clocks
on Mars and clocks on earth would be
negligibly different. Satellites,
particularly those used by GPS, need
extraordinarly accurate time synchronism
because the sighals (EM waves) it deals with
are moving so fast that a tiny error in time
could give rise to a large error in
distance.
QUESTION:
THE MOTION OF THE STARS AND PLANETS IS A
PUSH AND PULL OF ENERGIES. THE STARS GREAT
GRAVITY KEEPS THE PLANETS IN ORBIT AROUND
THEM. MY QUESTION IS ABOUT THE TWO FORCES
THAT EITHER KEEP THE PLANETS TRAPPED IN THE
STARS GRAVITY WELL OR ALLOW THEM AS IN AN
EXPANDING UNIVERSE TO OOPOSE THAT GRAVITY BY
THEIR "CENTRIFICAL" FORCE AND EITHER ESCAPE
THE STARS GRAVITY OR SUCCOMB TO IT AND
EVENTUALLY HAVE THEIR ORBITS DECAY GIVEN
THAT THE LIFE OF THE STAR IS LONG ENOUGH?
HYPOTHETICALLY DO NOT ALL PLANETS ORBITS
DECAY AND SUCCOMB TO THIS? IF NOT, WHAT
FORCE KEEPS THE PLANETS IN THEIR ORBITS
OTHER THAN THEIR ELLIPSES, THE CONSTANT
INWARD THEN OUTWARD DISTANCE FROM THE STAR,
WHAT FORCE ACTS ON THE PLANET KEEPING THEM
FROM EVENTUALLY GOING TO THE SUN?
ANSWER:
It seems as if you have not studied
physics much; that's ok, I can give you an
overview and point you in the right
direction for further study on your part. We
must first ask what forces act on planets.
There is no such thing as a centrifugal
force, it is what is called a fictitious
force because it is simply something we make
up in certain circumstances where Newton's
laws do not work. Perhaps you are thinking
of the accelerating universe expansion
caused by "dark energy" when you refer
"EXPANDING UNIVERSE…'CENTRIFICAL' FORCE."
That is unmeasurably small. Therefore, there
is no "PUSH AND PULL" tug of war going on,
it is only pull, i.e. gravity. The
problem you are wrestling with,
understanding planetary morion and generally
called the
Kepler problem, was solved about
350 years ago by Isaac Newton. Essentially
what he found is that any body moving around
a much heavier body moves in a stable
periodic orbit (does not decay and does not
change its shape), not "EVENTUALLY GOING TO
THE SUN". I urge you do learn about
Kepler's laws and the solution of the
Kepler problem.
QUESTION:
I am a medical student currently
studying the cardiovascular system and I am
having difficulty in understanding how a
pressure drop is created inside blood
vessels. My question is: in a laminar
constant flow where the pipe contains a
viscous liquid what creates the pressure
drop along the pipe between point A and
point B assuming they are on the same level?
In other words, how does friction lower the
pressure? Does it decrease the rate of
collisions between the liquid molecules? If
yes, how does it do that? If no, is there
another parameter that contributes to
pressure apart from the rate of collisions?
ANSWER:
I presume that you are familiar with
Poiseuille’s law,
R=ΔP·4πr4/(8ηL),
where
a fluid with viscosity η is flowing
through a tube (artery?) of length L
and radius r, R is the
rate of fluid flow, ΔP is the
pressure drop over L. Now, I see a
real problem with your question: you state
that there is a pressure drop "created" and
you try to understand this microscopically.
Since we are talking about cardio, let's
just say that, if the blood if moving,
something has to be pushing it. Let's go
back to the heart; the heart is a pump and
muscles in this amazing pump are
exerting
a force on the artery we are looking at. The
force is distributed over the whole area of
the artery so there is a pressure at that
end. After the blood has moved a certain
distance L we will find a lower
pressure; why? Because the viscosity is just
friction and exerts a backward force over
the whole volume. If it were an ideal fluid
with no viscosity, the pressure would be the
same on either end. Now I have sketched a
cartoon of what is happening: There is some
force (left red vector) which is pushing the
fluid ahead of it and, some distance down
the pipe, there would necessarily be an
analogous force (right red vector) pushing
the fluid in front of it (if viscosity were
zero). But, because there is viscosity,
there is a drag force which lessens the
pushing force as you move along the fluid
flow; I have represented this by the center
red vector as the net effect on the pushing
force across this length of pipe. Adding
this net drag force to the right red vector
results in the right-pointing green vector
which means the pressure on the right end
must be smaller than on the left. We
normally think of friction as slowing
something down, but because we assume this
to be an incompressible fluid, this is not
possible for a fluid. When I am presented
with an equation, in this case Poiseuille’s
law, I like to ask if it makes sense.
Assuming that I change one variable while
holding the others constant:
-
If
you increase viscosity, flow rate
decreases—honey flows more slowly than
water;
-
if
you increase the length the rate
decrease or the pressure drop increases;
-
if
you increase the radius of the pipe, the
flow rate increases or the pressure drop
decreases.
This
all makes sense.

QUESTION:
If a rigid rod is suspended at its ends
from 2 strings of equal length but hung at a
slope (approx. 15-degrees from horizontal),
will the strings hang vertically (plumb) or
at an angle?
ANSWER:
I assume that you will have the strings
attached to the slope a distance L
apart (see the diagram); if they weren't, it
would not be possible for
them
to be plumb. Now, we want to find when the
rod will be in equilibrium. That means that
the sum of all forces on the rod must add to
zero (Newton's first law). So I have drawn
the diagram showing the strings making an
angle θ with the vertical (y),
and the angle the slope makes with the
horizontal (x) is φ. There
are just three forces, the weight
W, the tensions of the
strings on the rod T1
and T2;
also I have shown the horizontal and
vertical components of the tensions (black).
I assume that the rod has uniform mass
distribution so that the weight acts at the
center of the rod. If the tensions were big
enough, the rod could be in equilibrium in
the vertical direction because the weight is
down and the vertical tension components are
up. But in the horizontal direction the only
forces are the x components of the
tensions and they both point in the negative
x direction; therefore it cannot be
in equilibrium. So we conclude that the
strings must be plumb (θ=0). We can
also conclude that the tensions must be
equal be equal because there must be no net
torque on the rod. Also, T=W/2 to
satisfy translational equilibrium.

QUESTION:
When making a large roll of paper, does
the surface temperature of the roll change
as its wound up. Does it change as it is
unwound (rate of paper coming off roll is
constant, so core of roll spins faster as
roll gets smaller. I always wanted to know
the physics behind this when printing
newspapers for 25 years! ~Shawn (The Boston
Globe)
ANSWER:
The paper should certainly heat up. The
reason is that friction is present. Imagine
taking a sheet of paper and hanging it from
one edge (#0 in the figure) You now pull it
out to position #1 and release it. Gravity
will pull it back and, perhaps it will swing
down like a pendulum. It will either swing
back to #0 or even keep moving until it gets
to #2; but it certainly will not go as far
to the right as it was dropped from.
Similarly when it swings back to the left
again to #3 it will not go as far as it did
to #2. Eventually it will stop at #0 again.
To start this pendulum you needed to do
work, so you endowed the paper with some
energy. But, after all was said and done,
the energy you gave it is gone. Imagine this
happening inside a large sealed box so we
can think of our paper pendulum as an
isolated system; then one of the most
important laws of physics is conservation of
energy, the total energy of an isolated
system never changes, should apply. So where
did the energy you added go? Heat! The paper
and the air in the box will become slightly
heated. There are two main ways that
friction works. Probably the most important
one is the air drag slowing it down as it
moves through the air; but this does not
seem like it would be important for paper
going onto or off of the roll since in that
case the motion is not perpendicular to the
surface, rather the motion slices through
the air. The other way is that the paper is
not perfectly elastic, some of the energy
you put in is lost just by bending the paper
which would heat it; think of a thin sheet
of a soft metal which, if you bend it back
and forth a few times, you can feel that it
is getting hotter. So, if you were pump all
the air out of the box, it would still stop
swinging eventually but probably quite a bit
more slowly.
QUESTION:
If two objects are moving away from each
other at half the speed of light, then are
they each travelling at the speed of light
relative to each other? And is that
possible?
ANSWER:
No that is not possible because
velocities do not add the way you expect
them to if the speeds are large. In your
world, if two cars are moving with speeds
u and v in opposite
directions, you would say that v'=u+v
where v' is the speed which
v is going relative to u;
this is called Galilean relativity.
But for objects moving with speeds
comparable with c, the speed of
light, the correct expression is
v'=(u+v)/[1+(uv/c2)].
In your question, u=v=0.5c
and you will find that v'=0.8c.
See an
earlier answer. Note that, if the speeds
of the objects are much smaller than c,
uv/c2≈0 and you
get the familiar answer.
QUESTION:
How are the mass of the moon and earth
related to the moons orbit?
ANSWER:
I will only give the results for
circular orbits. In general, the period
T of the orbit is T=2π√[R3/(G(M+m)]
where M and m are the
masses of the earth and moon, respectively,
G=6.67x10-11·m3·kg−1·s−2
is the gravitational constant, and R
is the radius of the orbit. If m<<M,
this may be approximated as T=2π√[R3/(GM)];
this is Kepler's third law, the square of
the period of a circular orbit is
proportional to the cube of its radius T2∝R3.

QUESTION:
This one has been bordering me for over
2 decades : What would be the reading on a
spring balance if 2 equal in magnitude but
opposite forces are applying on it ?

ANSWER:
If we are going to use a spring balance,
let's first calibrate it. Take a spring, lay
it on a table, and attach it to the wall as
shown on the figure. Next, exert many forces
on the end to stretch it and mark on a scale
the forces corresponding to what you have
pulled with. Since we assume that this is an
ideal spring the distance it is pulled (S)
is proportional to the force exerted The
proportionality constant, usually denoted as
k, is called the spring constant:
F=ks. For example, if S=10
cm in my figure, k=1/0.1=10 N/m. So
I have taylored my example to your question
and the scale at this stretch tells us that
you are pulling to the right with a force of
1 N. Note that the spring is in equilibrium
because it is at rest, so Newton's first law
must apply (the sum of all the forces must
equal zero). Vertical forces are the
spring's weight down and the force upward of
the table which must be equal to each other
in magnitude. Wait a minute! Is there
anything other than you which might be
exerting a horizontal force on the spring?
Of course, since the spring is attached to
the wall, it must exert a force of magnitude
1 N to the left. That is what you asked
about.
QUESTION:
Is there a similar doppler-like shift in
sound frequency if the sound source and
receiver are stationary relative to each
other but the air is moving at high speed
across both. A rocket team I am mentoring is
doing this experiment on their rocket with a
buzzer and microphones above and below the
buzzer, then recording the frequency of the
buzzer during flight.
ANSWER:
This is no different from the source and
observer both moving with the same velocity
through still air for which there is no
Doppler shift.
QUESTION:
I am writing a sci-fi novel and have a
question related to the physics of
astronomical bodies. I know quite a bit of
physics but wanted to double check
something. I wanted to know if a "cracked"
moon would retain a gravitational pull? Now
by "cracked", imagine the planet (moon in
this case, orbiting a gas giant)in its past
was "destroyed" by a super weapon that
fractured its hemispheres apart. I figure if
the hhemispheres were still close enough
they would rejoin into a sphere... but I
like the aesthetic of a ruined world. Also
this is a moon orbiting a gas giant so I
figure some parts would be flung out due to
the forces. So could this body still hold a
gravitational pull (even if weak) in the
broken state?
ANSWER:
Strange that you are talking about a
"moon", since that usually means something
orbiting a planet; smaller things orbiting
the star are ususally called asteroids or
dwarf planets; I will assume that this
halved object is not orbiting some other
larger object, just the gas giant. When the
"super weapon" broke up your moon it was
probably a very violent event where each
half would have gone flying away with likely
enough speed to escape each other. In that
case they would just end up in a new orbit
around the star and interact only slightly
with each other. Another possibility is that
the two would end up in orbit around their
center of mass and the center of mass would
orbit around the star the same way the whole
moon did before its destruction. I find that
the second scenario would be unlikely
because they would have flown directly away
from each other and, if they are not going
fast enough to escape from each other, they
will eventually come back and crash into
each other. The crash would not be gentle
and would not result in the original sphere
simply returning. Now, to your question.
There is nothing magic about a sphere and if
you have two hemispheres each of them would
have a gravitational field half the strength
of the two of them. Any object, regardless
of its shape, has a gravitational field.
Near a nonspherical object the strength of
the field depends on where, precisely, where
you measure it; but if you look at the field
far away from it the field will be very
close to that of the whole sphere. The force F on a point (or spherical) mass
m due to another (point or
spherical) mass M a distance R
away is given by F=MmG/R2.
QUESTION:
A common golf practice putting aid
consists of a 9-foot green mat that rises 5
inches in the final 1 foot, to a standard
sized golf hole. Balls putted to the hole
from any distance away that reach the lip of
the hole but do not go in, will roll back
down the small hill and return to a point
well beyond the starting point of the putt,
often rolling beyond the 9-foot length of
the mat. Thinking of the conservation of
mass and energy, can you explain how the
ball can return to a point beyond its point
of origin? It seems like it would need more
energy on the return trip than was imparted
upon the ball initially in order to do this.
ANSWER:
You are forgetting that the ball begins
its journey with considerable kinetic
energy. So it would have to lose quite a lot
of energy to friction to not get beyond the
starting point. If it lost no energy to
friction it would be moving with the same
speed you hit it with when it got back to
the same place it started.
I'm a
little disturbed by your reference to "…the
conservation of mass and energy…" because
there is no such thing as conservation of
mass, mass being a form of energy. You
should just think of conservation of energy.
Many times in physics the mass of a system
increases or decreases or disappears
altogether.
QUESTION:
What does it mean that a black hole rips
time? Does time stop or not work or changes
in a black hole?
ANSWER:
Because of time dilation, the closer
something gets to the black hole, the more
slowly time runs. At the event horizon,
inside of which nothing, even light, can
escape, time stops. So, from the perspective
of someone outside the black hole watching
something falling into the black hole, it
simply stops. However, we certainly know
that it does continue into the black hole.
Nobody, I believe, knows what the laws of
physics inside the the event horizon and
what time does. Of course, since nothing can
get out of a black hole, we can never do a
direct measurement of what is going on
inside. So hypotheses can be tested using
only indirect evidence.
I will
remind you that, as stated on the site, I
normally do not do
astronomy/astrophysics/cosmology. I would
urge you to find an astronomy site which
will answer your question (again a couple of
recommendations on the site).
QUESTION:
I was watching videos on some strange
properties of mercury, and its ability to
generate electromagnetic fields(EMF) when
having electricity applied to it. I was
wondering if EMF's have any effect, or
reaction with gravity? For example, if a car
was hypothetically inside a EMF stronger
than the one it is in on earth, then would
that cause the car to be less effected by
the earth's gravity? My hypothesis is if an
object is inside a considerably stronger EMF
than its surrounding environment, then that
object behaves as if gravity is like water
to a HydroFin. If you could clarify the
relation between gravity and EMF's, and tell
me if my hypothesis holds any water I would
greatly appreciate it

ANSWER:
Your question is very confusing.
-
First, it is usual notation in physics
that EMF is an acronym for
electromagnetic force, not field; this
itself is an anachronism because it is a
voltage (potential difference), not a
force!
-
Secondly, "…having electricity applied
to it…" is ambiguous; I will take that
to mean that a current is caused to flow
through it. Interestingly, it does not
appear that you ever talk about this
again
-
Third, electromagnetic field is broad
and not fully specified, so I shall
assume you mean an electric field.
-
Fourth, your entire sentence "My
hypothesis is…HyfroFin." makes no sense,
so I will ignore it.
The
crux of what your question is, as I see it,
the sentence "For example…gravity." What you
want to know is, essentially, if you put a
car into a strong electric field, will it be
"less effected by…gravity?" I will use a
conducting sphere to represent your car
because that will still convey the same
ideas but allow me to draw an easy to
understand figure. First, ignore the blue
lines; there is no electric field yet. Your
car sits on the road (black line) and is not
moving. The earth exerts a force (green
arrow) W down on
your car and is called the weight. The car
is in equilibrium because the road exerts an
upward force (yellow arrow) N
on the car which is of the
same magnitude as the weight; N
is what you would measure if the car were
sitting on a scale. You can't change the
weight but you could exert another upward
force on the car which would make it
seem to have less weight because
N would get
smaller. So you want to exert an additional
upward force by putting it in a strong
electric field. I will put it in a uniform
electric field. (A uniform field is one
which has the same strength everywhere and
points in the same direction everywhere; if
your car weren't there all the blue arrows
would be parallel and equally spaced.) Now,
what happens to the car when you turn on the
field? Because it is made of metal which is
a conductor, electrons in the car experience
a force opposite the field direction and
positive charges are left behind where the
electrons migrated from . This charge
distribution on the surface of the car now
creates an electric field of its own and the
blue arrows in the figure are the vector sum
of the original uniform field and the field
created by the car. The positive charges on
the top of the car experience a force upward
but the negative charges on the bottom
experience a force downward and so the net
result of adding the electric field is zero.
So your hypothesis that the field will
counter the gravity is not correct.
QUESTION:
Hi, i am an out of school adult,
electronics engineer, good understanding of
phisics, however my question: We know like
charged objects repel, we can determine how
strong the repelingness is, however HOW IS
THE MOTIVE FORCE IMPARTED TO MOVE THE
OBJECTS APPART? THERE IS A COMMUNICATION A
'FIELD' WHAT IS THE REPELINGNESS CONSTRUCTED
OF AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
ANSWER:
Classical electricity and magnetism
(E&M) is an empirical field theory, based on
experiments. A simpler field theory is
Newtonian gravity; here we find that any two
masses will attract each other. We imagine
that masses are the source of gravitational
fields but also masses feel gravitational
fields. If one mass m is near
another mass M, it feels a force at
all places around it, a vector, so the force
field is essentially a vector specification
for every point in space, a "continuous
table" which can be expressed as a function;
for example, if the masses are point masses,
the force M exerts on m is
FMm=u0Mmk/r2
where u0
is a dimensionless vector of magnitude u0=1
which points from m to M,
and r is the distance between the
masses, and k is just some
constant; similarly, the force m
exerts on M is FmM=-u0Mmk/r2;
you probably know this Newton' universal law
of gravitation. But we want something which
is more general than specific to a
particular situation. So, if we divide out
m for example,
FMm/m=u0Mmk/r2≡GM;
this is called the gravitational field due
to M and may be thought of as the
way that M alters the space around
it and also lets you know the force any
point mass nearby feels due to its presence.
So now
you have had your tutorial in fields and we
can move on to talk about E&M. The electric
field is pretty much the same as the
gravitational field except the masses are
replaced by electric charges and k
is obviously not the same (I will call it
k'), EQ=u0Qk'/r2
for point charges. A big difference from
gravitational theory is that while there is
only one kind of mass, there are two kinds
of charge, so the possibility of repulsive
as well as attractive forces exists. As you
no doubt know, opposites attract, sames
repel.
So far
I haven't probably told you anything you
didn't already know. I surmise, from the
capitalization you have used, that you don't
want to know about the field but what is
actually happening that you can get your
teeth into. It turns out that force fields
can be quantized, which in the case of E&M,
means that electric waves (light, radio,
etc.) may be thought of as streams of
tiny "pieces" of the wave called photons;
for a particular frequency wave all photons
have the same energy. If you now fully flesh
out E&M into the quantized field theory
(quantum electrodynamics, QED), photons may
be interpreted as the "messengers" of the
field. Think of an electric charge as being
surrounded by photons, the density of which
gets smaller as you get farther away. A
nearby charge, with its own "cloud" of
photons, interacts with the other charge via
these photons; there is your mechanism you
seek! The complete theory of E&M, including
QED, is generally considered the most
complete theory we have in physics. Also,
you can't directly observe this photon cloud
because the photons are called "virtual",
popping into and out of existence.
Incidentally, nobody has been successful in
quantizing the gravitational field, but if
it were the "field messenger" analogous to
the photon for E&M would be called the
graviton.
QUESTION:
Equivalence principle. I understand that
if I'm in an elevator in deep space and it
starts accelerating upwards at 9.8 m/s^2, if
I drop a ball I would see it move to the
floor the same as it would on Earth. If the
elevator continues to accelerate and I drop
the ball again I would see the ball move to
the floor but in a much shorter period of
time and so this wouldn't match what happens
on Earth. Does this mean the equivalence
principle only applies to that initial
period when the elevator starts
accelerating?
ANSWER:
The equivalence principle states that
you cannot tell whether you are in a frame
accelerating relative to an inertial frame
or in an inertial frame with a gravitational
field. The principle does not depend at all
on what the current speed of the
accelerating frame is, only its
acceleration. So, for example, if you have
an acceleration of 29 m/s2, no
experiment you perform will be different
than if you were in a gravitational field
with g=29 m/s2; even if
you have a speed of a million miles per
hour, your acceleration is not changing.
QUESTION:
The Wright brothers invented controlled
flight. In the years since, we have gone
from a fabric covered frame to synthetics
and carbon composites and the exploration of
space. Einstein and others came up with the
physics that developed atomic energy, both
bad and good. Since the mid 1940's what has
physics come up with, a material, process,
better mouse trap, that has made life
better? Are not all these creations in
technology the results of garage experiment,
engineers, both mechanical and chemical, and
inventors looking for a better way? What
have physicists been doing for the last 80
years, other than smashing things together
in accelerators to make pretty pictures?
ANSWER:
Wow, you seem to have quite an axe to
grind! First, let me address the
"philosophical" issue. One of the things
which makes us human is that we are curious,
always seeking better understanding of our
world, in fact the whole universe. Even
though new discoveries, to people like you,
seem pointless because they seem to have no
application you can use in your everyday
life, they often pan out in the end. So I
will enumerate just a few examples
-
So, one of the most important components
of modern technology was created by
physicists. Can you imagine modern life
without transisters? Sure, engineers
collaborated after the discovery by
miniturizing but without physics your
mobile phone would be absolutely
impossible.
-
How about lasers? Guess who you can
thank for lasers—that's right
physicists. They are everywhere,
scanners in grocery stores, the little
clip-on-your-finger blood oxygen
sensors, surveyers instruments, etc.
-
Had a CT scan or MRI lately? Physicists
invented them.
-
Computers? When I was in college I had a
summer job in the company where research
and development for making components
for nuclear submarines was done. They
had a computer in a room with an area of
probably about 10 yards by 30 yards made
using vacuum tubes; it had far less
computing power than the iPhone I have
in my pocket. Who first built computers?
Need I really ask?
I hope
you get the idea.
ADDED
THOUGHT:
By the way,
fundamental "discoveries" are never found by
inventors' garage experiments any more.
These "discoveries" are extensions of what
is already known—a better mouse trap but not
the fundamental idea of a mouse trap.
QUESTION:
In nuclear physics we talk about
bombardment of a nucleus with neutrons. Can
the same be done with protons? A neutron can
decay into an proton (after in average 9
minutes). At the moment of this change, a
"travelling neutron" might change into a
proton before it hits the nucleus. What
happens then?
ANSWER:
Protons are much easier to use to study
nuclear structure than neutrons. Because
protons have electric charge they can be
accelerated and steered using magnitic and
electric fields. Neutrons have no charge and
therefore you need to get them from nuclear
decay or from reactions of other particles
with nuclei, for example bombarding a
nucleus with protons and look for neutrons
coming out. Protons are much easier than
neutrons to detect making protons (or other
charged particles) more useful for
experiments. Regarding your second question,
if a neutron decays before interacting with
the target, it makes no difference since it
is neutrons which the experiment is designed
to observe and unwanted protons would be
very small compared to the flux of neutrons.
QUESTION:
If time slows as we approach the speed
of light, and stops at the speed of light.
And photons are particles of light, then
surely from the photon’s perspective, they
are all still inside the Big Bang. They have
not started expanding with the universe,
which is travelling slower than the speed of
light. Because photons only travel at the
speed of light. Which implies that all
photons we interact with, are still
connected together inside the Big Bang. Does
this not explain some of the mysteries of
quantum physics we are trying to solve?
ANSWER:
Photons do not have a "perspective". It
is pointless to talk about how things look
from a photon because, being a stable
particle, it has nothing "aboard". You can
read about this issue in an
earlier answer.
QUESTION:
I have a pot I bought from Goodwill. One
of those gorgeous well balanced copper
bottom pots. When I got it home and I put it
on my electric stove top and boil water, for
example, that the pot shakes and shakes and
shakes while it’s preparing to boil and
boiling water. Turns out the pot has kind of
a point in the center of it so It’s not a
flat bottom pot. Heres my question. I’ve
always wanted to know is why the heat from
my electric stove top makes my pot shaken,
shake shake. If I did not watch the pot, it
would possibly fall off the stove top
because the hotter the element is the more
it shakes and jiggles. Why does it do this
to my pot of water?
ANSWER:
You must have one of those glass surface
ranges. So the pot never has its whole
bottom on the surface. If it were sitting
with its center of gravity exactly above the
"point" it would be called unstable
equilibrium. The tiniest bit off and it
is not any longer in equlibrium and it
topples over until something stops it, in
your case the bottom edge of your pan hits
the stove top. (Think about trying to
balance a pencil on its point.) But it is
still very close to equilibrium so it takes
a very small force to cause it to rock back
toward equilibrium but, again, it won't stay
there and will drop to some other point on
the bottom edge, etc., etc.
Heating up something very hot causes all
sorts of things to happen—the metal expands
and warps a tiny bit more in one place or
another causing the position of the center
of gravity to move around; as the water
heats it convects around or starts bubbling
up in one place and not another; as the pot
rocks, the water sloshes around a little.
All these things keep changing and causing
the pot to shake around
QUESTION:
I have a question about gravitational
waves. What happens to a gravitational wave
if it encounters a massive object? If a
gravitational wave, created, perhaps, by two
black holes colliding with each other,
reaches some massive object and passes
through it, does this cause the object to
move? And if it does move, does it, in turn,
create further gravitational waves? Does it
strengthen the original wave such that it
lasts longer? I guess another way of putting
it is, would a gravitational wave from two
colliding black holes be more or less likely
to reach the earth if it passed through
other planets on the way? I assume the
effect would be very small, but would there
be any effect at all?
ANSWER:
I normally do not answer questions on
astronomy/astrophysics/cosmology as stated
on the site. But, I will take a stab at this
one. I think we can assume that the
superposition principle applies to
gravitational waves, so any gravitational
waves passing the same point in space would
simply add. It has taken many decades of
many physicists trying for gravitational
waves to be actually observed. And, if any
mass accelerates it will create
gravitational waves. So let's consider
Jupiter, a quite large mass which is
accelerating constantly because of its
orbital motion. The gravitational waves
predicted are undetectably small. It takes a
catastrophic event like the merging of two
black holes to make detectable waves. Even
though they are large distances from us, we
still can detect them although their
intensity decreases quadratically with the
distance they have traveled. These waves are
enormously bigger than any they might
encounter, so the addition of others makes
no detectable difference.
QUESTION:
What would happen if fermions had no
spin? Would this violate the Pauli exclusion
principle?
ANSWER:
They would not be fermions would they?
Then the Pauli exclusion principle would not
apply to them. And, atoms could not exist,
nuclei could not exist, stars could not
exist—our universe as we know it could not
exist.


QUESTION:
If I look at the polar plot of the
Klein-Nishina differential cross section
with respect to solid angle for Compton
scattering, it appears that for high-energy
photons, forward scattering dominates. That
is, the scattering angles are near zero, and
the energy transfer to the electron is low.
But then I look at the differential cross
section for recoil electrons with respect to
their energy vs. recoil energy and I see
that the most highest probability for
scattering an electron into a particular
energy occurs at the Compton edge (i.e. a
photon-scattering angle of ~ 180 deg). These
two things seem contrary to one another.
Clearly I am missing some basic concept.
ANSWER:
You
should read the details of this issue in the
discussion on
Physics Forums. I urge you to download
the book (Evans) referred to in the Physics
Forums discussion. I will use results from
the book and discussion to give you my
"quick and dirty" explanation of the energy
dependence of dσ/dT where
T is the electron kinetic energy.
Suppose that the angle which the electron
recoils is φ then the differential
cross section is dσ/dΩ'
where dΩ'=2πsinφdφ.
(Note that Evans notates the cross section
as eσ.) In the book it
is shown (eq. 4.5) that (dσ/dφ)=2πsinφ(dσ/dΩ')
which is the angular distribution of the
differential cross section. Now, cleverly,
the chain rule is applied (eq. 5.1): dσ/dφ=(dσ/dT)(dT/dφ).
Finally one can show (eq 5.2) that
dσ/dT=(dσ/dΩ)[2π/(α2m0c2]{[(1+α)2-α2cos2φ]/[(1+α)2-α)(2+α))cos2φ]}2.
Here
α=hν0/m0c2
where hν0 is the energy
of the incident photon and m0c2
is the rest mass energy of the electron. Be
sure to note that (dσ/dΩ)
is a function of θ; I have looked
up reference D12 of the Evans book and
gotten the
equation for (dσ/dΩ)
and plotted it for hν0=10
MeV; your intuition was right: the cross
section for electrons scattering is largest
when the photon scatters to 180°. There will
be, at each angle φ, an energy
spectrum and that is what [dσ/dT](α,θ,φ)
gives you. Now the spectrum you are
interested in is the spectrum of all
electrons so you integrate over θ
and φ. The resulting spectrum you
will see cannot be be larger than hν0
because that is all the energy the photons
brings in and, since the photon will not be
totally absorbed, the highest energy
electrons will be a little less than that. I
guess that wasn't so "quick"!
QUESTION:
I am an Indian,I came across a section
from my religious scripture that States.
"When atoms move to cover space, this is
called time, and time is measured according
to the amount of space covered by atoms
[Srimad Bhagavatam 3.11. 3-4]. It is
generally accepted that when time stands
still (although impossible), there is no
movement of anything. This also confirms
that the movement of atoms is time" can you
answer the validity of this?
ANSWER:
We know, from the successful theories of
special and general relativity, that time
and space are not independent things, that
they are coupled to each other such that
different observers have different
observations regarding the values of space
and time in their own frames. Your has
statement some validity in that it
recognizes that time and space are in some
way related. The statement that "…the
movement of atoms is [my
emphasis] time…", however, is vague and its
meaning not operationally defined. I have
heard some of our best cosmologists state
that if only we really understood what time
is we would understand the
universe much better than we do.
QUESTION:
Recently I've been thinking about
alternative explanations to the double-slit
experiment and there is one idea that I
can't debunk. Accelerating and decelerating
electrons creates an electromagnetic field
that can later affect the movement of
electrons. So is it possible that the double
slit experiment doesn't prove electrons are
waves but was rather caused by an
electromagnetic field that affected the
movement of electrons?
ANSWER:
What electrons are you thinking about?
So, we arrange the situation so that only
one electron per second goes through the
slit(s) and there are no other electrons to
be affected by the presence of the incident
electron (.e.g., make the slits out
of an insulating material). You will still
find the same double slit diffraction
pattern. Further, you will observe only one
electron at a time striking the detector
screen. I think you should not waste your
time trying to disprove wave-particle
duality; the number of measurements and
experiments which prove it are beyond
number.

QUESTION:
As a massage therapist, I often see
images of a head hanging lower and lower,
labeled with the increased weight at each
degree of tilt. Now the head only weighs so
much and it's hard to believe that a couple
vertabrae add all the kilograms. So what is
really being said?
ANSWER:
When I first started to research this I
was appalled at how badly the analyses were
from a physics standpoint. First of all,
you, unlike almost anybody, are correct in
saying that the head has a weight, period.
The weight of something is a force which
points toward the center of the earth and is
the force which the earth exerts on it. So
the fact that 90% of articles say the weight
of the head increases as we lean forward is
nonsense. I have lifted a generic diagram of
what happens when you lean forward. A
simplified model of what the forces on your
head are its weight W,
the force FM
due to a muscle attached to the vertebra
behind your head, and a force FV
due to the top vertebra pushing up. Now, the
head is in equilibrium so the sum of these
three forces must equal zero; another way to
say this is that the sum FM+W
must equal the negative
of FV
which is why I have labeled the sum on the
diagram to the left as -FV.
-FV
is also the force which
the head exerts on the vertebra . This force
is what is usually called the weight of the
head and is clearly larger than the weight.
When you are standing straight up
FM=0 so
FV =-W.
Note also that all forces have been assumed
to pass throught the center of gravity so
that we do not need to think about torques.

QUESTION:
Would it be possible for someone to
construct a funnel or cornucopia shaped
object with a polished mirror surface that
directed all light incident to any surface
to reflect down to a point like a fiber
optic cable?
ANSWER:
Probably the closest you could come to
doing this is a parabolic mirror which
focuses all light from distances much
greater than its focal length to a single
point. Reflection telescopes are parabolic
and have have the advantage over lens
telescopes because they have neither
chromatic nor spherical aberations.
QUESTION:
If you take a flat piece of black metal,
say iron, it is not emitting light/photons
at that moment. If anything it could said
that it is absorbing them. If you then pass
a powerful electrical current through the
piece of metal it can then become so bright
that you cannot look at it. Is the
brightness being seen truly being caused by
the sudden release of photons? If so how is
the current passing through the iron
generating photons?
ANSWER:
Every object is constantly emitting
photons. If that object is in thermal
equilibrium with its environment, the rate
at which it emits energy is equal to the
rate at which it absorbs energy. Even if the
object is cool, say room temperature or a
little above, it emits photons. That is how
night-vision goggles work, "seeing" infrared
radiation. If you now pass a current through
this bar it heats up because of resistive
heating (just like your toaster) and it is
now hotter than its environment and it emits
more photons than it absorbs and, because it
is much hotter, it emits photons which are
in the visible spectrum, red.

QUESTION:
Hi, is there any work being done on
wavelengths/wave forms being helical in
structure? The more I look at wavelengths,
the more it seems counterintuitive to me
that they exist in on a flat plane, and
that, surely they must have at least some
level of 'spin' or some level of helical
movement? I am just wondering if any work
has been done in this area, or if it has
been 100% proven that they move within a
flat plane.
ANSWER:
I commend you for thinking, great
intuitive leap! You are absolutely correct,
the waves which are first taught in a
physics class are what are linearly
polarized, or said to have linear
polarization. For an electromagnetic
wave, a linearly polarized wave always has
the electric field perpendicular to the
direction the wave is moving and always in a
single plane in which the line of travel is
entirely contained. In situations where that
plane is rotating about the line of travel
is when you get the "helical" behavior you
have been speculating about; this is called
circular polarization. The little animation
shows how the electric field (little red
arrow) varies; note that the electric field
in this polarization has two components
which are 90° (¼ of a wavelength) out of
phase with each other. If you want to learn
more about polarization, see the
Wikepedia article. You ask whether there
is "…any work being done…". No, all this has
been well understood for about 200 years!
QUESTION:
I have an assignment for my year 11
physics but I accidently made the experiment
I conducted for it much harder to understand
then it should be. The original prac was
simply attatching different coloured paper
around 4 beakers and recording the change in
temperature in a heat box using heat lamps.
This was simple to explain and I did a
shorter practise assignment on it. In the
experiment we have though we instead decided
to change the colour of the water, and heat
it up with the sun. We can't retake the prac
but I cannot find a formula that works for
the expected relationship, neither do I
understand what any of it even means.
I was
able to get an AI to create a fomula:
ΔT =
(P × t) / (M × C × AF) where:
P =
solar radiation (1361 W/m2)
t = time
(600 seconds or 10 minutes)
m = mass of
dyed water (300 g)
C = specific heat
capacity of water (4.184 J/g°C)
AF =
absorption factor (let's assume it is 0.5)
But
this formula doesn't take into consideration
the outside temperature, and I don't
understand what is actually happening.
ANSWER:
The first thing I want to emphasize is
that physics is not formulas. Yes, equations
are the way we approach physics problems,
but if you think physics is getting a
"formula" and plugging numbers into it to
get an answer, then you will never really
know how to understand nature. Let's take a
look at the formula which the AI gave you.
Does it make sense? What causes the
temperature to change? Some of the light
entering the beakers is absorbed which means
that the energy heats up the water. So the
more light which is absorbed (large
absorption factor) the more the temperature
will change; but the A-not-so-brilliant-I
has put AF in the denominator which
means large AF results in small ΔT,
blatantly wrong! Also an exercise worth
doing when determining whether an equation
is possibly correct is to do a dimensional
analysis—are the dimensions the same on each
side of the equation? I will do this
analysis in terms of units rather than
dimensions which makes it easier here. Left
side of the equation has units of
temperature (K); K is for Kelvin, the unit
for temperature in SI units. Look at the
right side: P has W/m2=(J/s)/m2,
t has units of seconds (s), M
is kg, C is J/(kg·K), AF
is m-1. Putting them all
together, [(J/s)(s)/(m2)]/[(kg)(J/(kg·K)(m-1)]=K/m;
so the equation is almost dimensionally
correct. The culprit here is the AF;
perhaps your AI bot did not use the usual
definition of absorption fraction, maybe
simply the fraction not getting through (i.e.
50% if AF=0.5), but to put it in
the denominator still is wrong because this
would say that twice as much energy is
absorbed as comes in! But now I think I see
the problem. If we take AF to be a
fraction or percentage, the dimensions of
the right side are now K/m2,
still different from the left (K). I think
that AF should be changed to A
times F where A is the
area the light is shining on and F
is the fraction of the light energy absorbed
and both A and F should be
moved to the numerator:
ΔT=P·t·F·A/(M·C)
and
this will be dimensionally correct. The
outside temperature does not enter because
we assume that the water is at that
temperature to start and all we care about
is the change in temperature. Also, I have
used Kelvin temperatures but all we want is
change in T and ΔT is the
same for °C and K. Let me try to see if this
gives anything at all like we would expect
just guessing A and F:
P=1361
W/m2
t=300
s
F=0.5
M=0.3
kg
A=100
cm2x(1 m/100 cm)2=10-2
m2
C=(4.184
J/g°C)x(1000 g·K/1 kg)=4.184x103
J/kg·K
I find
ΔT=1.63 °C which seems reasonable.
But,
what does your assignment ask for? It asks
only what the temperature is after 10
minutes, it does not ask you to have an
equation. But I hope that you have learned
something about how you should approach
understanding the meaning of an equation. I
had to spend quite a bit of time on your
question because you started me with an
equation where there were some clear errors
and also a serious misunderstanding of what
you had (AF rather than A·F).
I hope that you now "…understand what is
actually happening…".
QUESTION:
I just went bowling and was able to roll
a 14 Pound ball at 23.36MPH. I was just
wondering how many pounds of force was
needed to reach that speed? I threw out my
back and arm in the process but it was
totally worth it.
ANSWER:
If you had bothered to look in the faq
page you would not have to ask this
question. And, how in the world did you
ascertain the speed so accurately? The
answer is that it is impossible to answer
this question because there is not enough
information. As one quick example, suppose
we view you pushing on the ball with a force F1 for 0.1 seconds; it
would require a force of approximately F1=148
lb to achieve the ball's speed of 23.36 mph.
Now, if you instead push for 0.2 seconds, it
would require a force of approximately F2=74
lb to achieve the ball's speed. Two
different forces would result in the same
speed! If you want to have more detail, go
to the
faq page and follow the link there.
QUESTION:
Hello, I am a motorcycle rider and an
argument that comes up repeatedly in the
community is regarding the effects of sheer
winds pushing a motorcycle to the left or
right. Obviously, wind pushes a
motorcycle,but the issue in questions is
whether solid wheels like that on a Harley
Fatboy "catch" more wind than that of a
wheel with spokes. I've always been of the
understanding that a spoked wheel spinning
at the same rpm's would essentially be the
same as a solid wheel and there is no real
difference to the rider on the motorcycle.
Are you able to explain this and which is
correct?

ANSWER:
I feel quite certain that the force of a
cross wind on a solid wheel would be larger
than on a spoked wheel, spinning or not; for
a wind to exert a force on something the
wind must push on it and, whether the wheel
is spinning or not, it has a much smaller
area for the wind to actually hit. There is
a fair amount of research which has been
done on bicycles rather than motorcycles,
but the emphasis seems to be mainly on the
effect on drag forces along the direction of
the velocity rather than laterally. I think
that strong opinions are based on perception
of the rider who has ridden cycles with both
kinds of wheels and perceives no difference.
For example, a rider is likely to think that
the two wheel contributions are the same
because the force of a cross wind on the
rider and the rest of the cycle (red arrow
in figure) is probably much larger than the
difference between spoked and solid wheels,
making any difference difficult to feel.
Similarly, the force tending to tip the
cycle over (as opposed to the tendency to
push it laterally) is relatively smaller for
the wheels (green arrows) than for the rider
and the rest of the cycle (red arrow)
because, the red arrow is much higher off
the ground and much larger than the green
arrows and therefore exerts a much larger
tipping torque.; again this lessens the
ability to percieve a difference in the two
types of wheels.
QUESTION:
I cannot find the answer to this
question anywhere. Consider 1kg rock
traveling through space at a constant
velocity. It has a constant amount of
kinetic energy. If it comes near a large
planet and gets caught in its gravitational
field, and eventually hits the surface of
the planet, its velocity will increase as it
approaches the planet, thereby increasing
its kinetic energy. How can we reconcile
this with the first law of thermodynamics,
namely energy can neither be created or
destroyed but only transferred from one
place to another. Where does this new energy
come from? Gravity is a field, not energy.
ANSWER:
You misunderstand conservation of
energy. Only the energy of an
isolated system is conserved. In your
example, the rock was originally isolated
and so its energy was conserved, i.e.
it moved with constant velocity in a
straight line. However, when it encountered
the planet, it was no longer an isolated
system. It experienced a force (the gravity
of the planet) which did work on it and
increased its kinetic energy. Incidentally,
a gravitational field is energy, it
has an energy density.
QUESTION:
I am new student of diagnostic imaging -
ultrasound and have a question regarding the
acoustic variables. As per the information
that I collected I came to an understanding
that the particle motion is the distance
covered or displacement of the particle.
However my Professor was disagreeing with
this and says that particle motion is not
the distance. Could you please help me to
clarify this?
ANSWER:
There is no way I can know the jargon
used in your specialized field. "Particle
motion" could be one or more
quantities--frequency and amplitude for
example. But what particles are being
described?
FOLLOWUP
QUESTION:
So basically, we are
learning about sound waves and its
properties and its appplication in
ultrasound imaging. The lecture was
regarding the acoustic variables and were
having discussion on "particle motion" as
the sound travels through the medium. As per
what I read, the particle motion is because
of the oscillations in the particles of the
medium as sound travels through it and it is
distance and can be measured in cms, etc.
However our instructor said that particle
motion is not particle displacement and
hence distance is not an acoustic variable.
I am not really convinced by his explanation
and was seeking some advice on this.
ANSWER:
Again I emphasize that I am not an
expert in ultrasound symantics and you would
be much better advised to talk with your
instructor to find out what he/she means.
Generally, in acoustics, we do not pay much
attention to what the particles in the
medium are doing. We know they are moving
around in some way but we are more
interested in the wave itself.
What
are the properties of the wave which you are
using for imaging, for example.
- The three most important variables
are its velocity v in the
medium (made up of molecules which
presumably are your "particles"), the
wavelength λ of the wave, and
the frequency f; these three
are related, v=λf.
- Also important in understanding the
wave is its amplitude which is a measure
of how "loud" the sound is.
- A fifth important variable is the
phase of the wave, important if
interference of more than one wave is
considered.
What is the motion of the particles which
underlie the sound wave?
- Sound waves are known to be
longitudinal, i.e. the particle
motion is oscillatory parallel to the
direction of the velocity of the wave.
- Being oscillatory, the each particle
moves about fixed point in space, it
does not move with the wave; so
"displacement" and "velocity" of the
particle depends on the time and their
time-averaged values are zero. This may
be the reason your instructor does not
like your choice of displacement to be
part of particle motion.
- The individual particles vibrate
with a frequency which is the same as
the frequency of the wave and with an
amplitude which is proportional to
whatever you observe the amplitude of
the wave to be.

The animation illustrates the particle
motion. The little red arrow tracks the
longitudinal oscillatory motion of a single
particle. Watching the open circles shows
them getting more and then less densly
populated which indicates that sound may be
more macroscopically viewed as regions of
high and low pressure which propogate in the
direction the waves are traveling.
I hope that this
helps you. Anyway, it is the best I am going
to be able to do!
QUESTION:
in a scene from Apollo 13, astronaut Ken
Mattingly and engineer John Aarons are
seeking to help the crew of the Apollo 13
transfer the remaining power from a battery
on the LEM to a battery on the Command
Module to which the 3 astronauts had
returned after the had used the LEM as a
"lifeboat"...how can that be done?
Especially when the LEM battery has less
"juice" than the battery on the Command
Module? No doubt an umbilicus would be
attached from one battery to the other-would
the power simply flow spontaneously from one
battery the other? And however they were
caused this to occur, wouldn't the current
flow from the battery with MORE power to the
one with less? How can the power be "coaxed"
from the weaker battery to the stronger?I
ANSWER:
There is a
nice article on the web which addresses
your question.

QUESTION:
I am a freelance writer, and I am trying
to build a scenario, only if it is
theoretically possible. Here it goes. In the
movie Interstellar, which I know is likely
more film than proven science, there is a
planet in which time passes slower than time
on earth because of its proximity to a
massive black hole. So every hour on Planet
A equals ten or so years on Earth. I have
found some theories and answers online that
all suggest this is possible, time dilation,
relatively stuff. What I am trying to
understand is can the opposite be true? Is
it possible with specific conditions that a
planet could exist in which time moves
faster than it does on Earth. For instance,
on Earth one year is 365 days. Could there
be a scenario in which for every year on
Earth, 20 or 50 years passes on Planet B? I
have tried to find this answer online, and
by asking people who have a better
understanding of this subject matter than I
do, but I haven't gotten close to sniffing
this.
ANSWER:
First, Interstellar has
received many accolades for the accuracy of
the physics. At the beginning of the
production they hired Kip Thorne, a renoun
theoretical astrophysicist and Nobel
laureate as an advisor; he kept a very tight
rein on maintaining good science,
forbidding, for example,
faster-than-light-speed of space ships. A
picture is worth 1000 words! Look at the
graph I have included. This graph
illustrates the rate at which clocks in
circular orbits run faster than a clock on
the surface. Both time dilation due to
velocity (red curve) and gravitational time
dilation due to earth's gravity (green curve)
as well as the net time rate change (blue
curve). The clock considering only special
relativity (speed) runs slower but the
effect is zero infinitely far away. The
clock considering only general relativity
(gravity) runs faster and is fast as it can
get infinitely far away. Infinitely far away
the clock will run faster at a rate of about
700x10-12 second for each second
on earth's surface; that is the fastest you
can get a clock to go compared to earth. One
year on earth would be shorter by 0.022
seconds than the distant clock. What you
want is not possible.
QUESTION:
I would appreciate it if you could
explain how a screw/conical shaped object
moves down an inclined surface. I understand
that it may have to do with circular motion
of some sort, but in real life, I have
noticed that it seems to oscillate, with its
oscillations increasing as it rolls down in
some scenarios, I'm just curious as to what
concepts are involved in this!
ANSWER:
A cone on an inclined plane can be very
easy to describe, pretty easy to describe
but just qualitatively, or really hard to
describe. If there is no friction between
the cone and the plane and it
starts
from rest, it will slide straight down the
incline just like a cube or ball would with
no friction; thats the easy one. If the cone
can roll only without slipping (infinite
friction), it will not go down the incline
at all but oscillate like a pendulum as
illustrated in the figure; this is the easy
situation to understand qualitatively. It
could be described analytically because
there are only two variables, the angle of
swing of this pendulum, and the rotational
angle about the axis of the cylinder, but it
would not be easy; also, it would likely
require require small angle approximations
as in the simple pendulum. If the cone can
slip and roll, the problem is much too
difficult for the purposes of this site. I
can imagine it slipping and rolling, as you
have observed, and having an oscillating
behavior. For more detail, try this
link.
QUESTION:
let's assume that a race is taking place
between the speed of light and a person with
a stick. The stick is as long as the
earth-sun distance, and it needs a
millimeter to touch the earth. My position
is in the sun. The goal of the race is for
one of these contestants to touch the earth.
So the contestant with the stick only needs
to touch the stick for the stick to touch
the earth. Which of the contestants will
win?
ANSWER:
Your question is very much like a
similar
earlier question. The answer is that the
light would touch the earth before the
stick, long before. When you push your end
of the stick to move it forward 1 mm, the
other end does not instantaneously move. The
information that you have moved your end
moves down the stick atom by atom with the
speed of sound in whatever the material you
have made the stick of. The speed of sound
is far slower than the speed of light.
Besides, the mass of such a stick would be
so enormous that it would take an enormous
force to provide the necessary acceleration
to move it forward in a relatively short
time.
QUESTION:
Why can't energy just be seen as a
measure of change? It seems to me that if
something changes then there must be a
compensatory change somewhere else. Consider
the case of a mass at a elevation of 3m
above the earth. What we call its potential
energy is both a measure of the amount of
change that occurred to raise the mass and a
measure of how much chage will occur if it
is released. Its kinetic energy is at each
moment as it falls is a measure of how much
change has occurred. More mass moved more
change; moving faster more change happening.
Thus, kinetic energy as a measure of change
would involve both mass and velocity as it
does. When it hits the ground and stops that
a change that needs to be compensated for.
The earth is deformed, i.e., other things
moved, i.e., had an increase in their
kinetic energy although this would probably
be measured as an increase in heat. The
object would also be hotter, as its own
atoms would have be jolted into motion, so
actually just kinetic energy, i.e., change
in motion. There would probably me some
sound energy also just kinetic energy of air
molecules, etc. Isn't this all just
different ways of measuring different
changes in different parts of a system? I
have seen answers to this question. All in
the negative, but they are unconvincing.
Mostly they say something like, "No, energy
is ... " or something really unhelpful like,
"Everything is energy"
ANSWER:
Your question is qualitative. Science is
primarily quantitative. I think you hit on
well-thought out ideas but they are
qualitative ideas and that may be useful for
understanding things conceptually, but not
for putting you in the position to study
nature
quantitatively. One of physics' most
important laws is that the total energy of
an isolated system never changes; indeed,
when energy is not conserved, i.e.
changing, that is important to measure and
understand why. But you are not really going
to appreciate that if you think that energy
is "...just...a
measure of change" are you? Science requires
clear quantitative definitions of the
variables which you can measure to test
whether your laws and hypotheses are true or
not. And I might ask what is the mass energy
of a particle, you know, E=mc2,
got to do with change? Or, how can the
energy density of a constant electric field
be understood "just" in terms of change?
QUESTION:
If I am trying to find what length is
needed for a pendulum for it to complete one
back and one forward motion to the beats per
second of a song, how would I do that?
ANSWER:
A simple pendulum is defined to be a
point mass M attached to a massless
string of length L. The period
T of such a pendulum is approximately
T=2π√(L/g)
where g is the acceleration due to
gravity which has a value of 9.8 m/s2
(if L is in meters) or 32 ft/s2
(if L is in feet). All times are in
seconds (s). Therefore L=T2g/(4π2);
putting in the values for g and pi,
L=0.248T2 m or
L=0.811T2 ft. For
example, suppose that T=2 s; then
L=3.24 ft=38.9 inches.
All
this comes with a couple of provisos though.
First, there are no such things as point
masses or massless strings; this should be
pretty easy to ignore as long as the size of
the mass is much smaller than the length of
the string. Second, you will note that I
used the word approximately when describing
the equation for T. It turns out
that when deriving this equation you find
that the differential equation you need to
solve does not have a closed form solution,
you have to make the approximation that the
maximum angle of swing is small, for your
purposes you should probably keep the angle
of swing (from vertical) to be less than 30°
for the formulae to work well. By the way,
note that the equation for T does
not depend on either the mass or the
amplitude; for larger angles this is not the
case.
QUESTION:
In the twins paradox, twin A travels
away at nearly the speed of light and, some
time later, returns at nearly the speed of
light. Twin A has aged less than twin B.
However, since velocity is relative, twin A
sees twin B travel away and then return, so
twin B should have aged less than twin A.
Obviously both can't be right. The
difference is that twin A accelerated. Did
the rate of aging actually only reduce
during the periods of acceleration, i.e.
while twin A was subject to a force? If so,
is this related to the slowing of time while
subject to a gravitational force?
ANSWER:
The twin paradox is not a paradox at
all; it is easily understood. It has nothing
to do with the acceleration or gravity. What
you are missing is length contraction. The
trip is to some distant star and back. The
distance between this star, as measured by
the earthbound twin, is D. But the
traveling twin sees that distance to be
D√[1-(v/c)2]
because of length contraction. I urge you to
go to my
faq
page where you can find a link to my
discussion of the twin paradox.
QUESTION:
My question in regard to the
photoelectric effect. All electromagnetic
waves travel at the speed of light, yet
their frequencies can change. There's
something here I'm not getting.
ANSWER:
I don't see how this relates to the
photoelectric effect. Perhaps you are
thinking about the Compton effect where a
photon scatters from an electron and its
frequency after the collision is smaller
than before the collision? If the light has
some frequency f then the energy of
one photon is E=hf where h
is Planck's constant. And, although a photon
has no mass, its linear momentum is
p=hf/c where c is the speed of
light. Now, let's think classically for a
moment. Suppose one ball collides with
another which is at rest; after the
collision the incoming ball will be going
more slowly than before the collision, that
is, both its linear momentum and its energy
are smaller. The same is true for a photon
colliding with an electron and its energy
and momentum are both smaller and the only
way that can happen is if it has a lower
frequency. It is hard to swallow, at first,
that something can change its momentum
without changing its speed, but if it has no
mass, it may be hard to imagine it has any
momentum at all! But, that's the way it is
in special relativity.
QUESTION:
My question in regard to the
photoelectric effect. All electromagnetic
waves travel at the speed of light, yet
their frequencies can change. There's
something here I'm not getting.
ANSWER:
I don't see how this relates to the
photoelectric effect. Perhaps you are
thinking about the Compton effect where a
photon scatters from an electron and its
frequency after the collision is smaller
than before the collision? If the light has
some frequency f then the energy of
one photon is E=hf where h
is Planck's constant. And, although a photon
has no mass, its linear momentum is
p=hf/c where c is the speed of
light. Now, let's think classically for a
moment. Suppose one ball collides with
another which is at rest; after the
collision the incoming ball will be going
more slowly than before the collision, that
is, both its linear momentum and its energy
are smaller. The same is true for a photon
colliding with an electron and its energy
and momentum are both smaller and the only
way that can happen is if it has a lower
frequency. It is hard to swallow, at first,
that something can change its momentum
without changing its speed, but if it has no
mass, it may be hard to imagine it has any
momentum at all! But, that's the way it is
in special relativity.

QUESTION:
I had a little fun question. I was
watching an old Shrek
commercial and he threw donkey into
space. Donkey weighs 400 lbs mind you. How
strong would Shrek have to be and the force
needed to do that?
ANSWER:
So, I attached a picture from the video
showing Donkey just as he stopped and began
to fall back down. Let's make a guess that
he is at a distance 10 earth radii (R0)
from the center of the earth (i.e.,
at an altitude of 9R0).
The potential energy U of mass
m at a distance r from the
center of the earth is U=-MmG/r
where M is the mass of the earth
and G is the universal
gravitational constant. The donkey's total
energy at the instant that Shrek releases
him is his potential energy plus kinetic
energy, E1=-MmG/R0+½mv2,
where v is the speed of Donkey; at
the peak of his trajectory his energy is
E2=-MmG/(10R0).
If we neglect friction as he passes through
the atmosphere, the energies must eqal each
other; so if we equate them and put in all
the data we would need, M, m,
G, and R0, we
can solve for the velocity. You are probably
not interested in all the arithmetic, so I
will skip it and give you the answer, v=7500
m/s=17,000 mph. Now you can find the kinetic
energy to be 5.1x109 J=1400
kilowatt-hours. If Shrek exerts an average
force over, let's estimate, about 6 ft, the
force would be about 2.55x109
N=4.6x1011 lb. Even if Donkey
were made from the strongest material known
to mankind, there is no way he could survive
this force!.

QUESTION:
How much wind force would be required to
move an air cargo container measuring
6'x6'x6', with an empty weight of 138 pounds
sitting on a bed of rollers, ball bearings
or casters? Is it less than would be
required if sitting on the ground?
ANSWER:
So, it depends on the material it is
made from, what the "ground" is like, and
how good the the rollers are. I will assume
that the ground is very hard and horizontal.
If you were doing the pushing other than the
wind, there would be two things you could
ask: how hard must you push to get it moving
and then how hard to keep it moving at a
constant speed. In a situation like this
(horizontal) the force of friction (f)
is proportional to the weight (W),
f=μW where μ is called the
coefficient of
friction;
if μ is a small number it will be
easy to move, if large it will be hard.
There are two kinds of μ, static
and kinetic, which give you the force for
starting or keeping at a constant speed,
respectively; μstatic>μkinetic.
That takes care of the sliding part; now we
have to address the speed of the wind and
how much force it exerts on something. There
is a very useful way to estimate this force
¼Av2 where A is
the area presented to the wind in m2,
F is in Newtons (N), and v
is the wind speed in m/s. Since this is in
SI units, I will have to convert to your
Imperial units to SI units, W=138
lb=614 N, A=36 ft2 =3.34
m2. So now, the push must be
equal to the frictional force, 614μ=3.34v2
or v=√(184μ) m/s=30.4√μ
mph. We could now try some examples:
-
wood sliding on concrete, μ=0.62,
v=24 mph
-
steel sliding on steel, μ=0.8,
v=27 mph
-
nylon casters on concrete, μ=0.04,
v=6.1 mph
I have
included a graph of speeds as a function of
coefficient of friction.
QUESTION:
What are the physics principles of
throwing boiling water in extreme cold and
instantly becomes cloud (no snow i guess).
ANSWER:
See this
article and this
video.
QUESTION:
OK, maybe a stupid question, but it
doesn't leave me alone: If you are in a room
where all walls are mirrors and the only
light source inside the room is a flashlight
you are holding, then shouldn't the room
stay perfectly lit, when you turn the
flashlight off? ...at least for a decent
amount of time, as all the photons keep
bouncing around and only slowly get absorbed
(by the mirrors' imperfections and your own
body, including your eyes)? Intuitively, I
assume the room goes pitch black
immediately, as you turn off the light, but
I do not know why.
ANSWER:
The reason is that the light goes so
fast and loses a tiny bit of light with each
reflections but there are so many that the
light decays very fast. To see some
numerical details worked out, go to an
earlier answer.
QUESTION:
Can we see further around the Earth due
to spacetime curvature from gravity? Because
the equations for how far our visible
horizon is and my own personal experience,
don't quite seem to mesh.
ANSWER:
The curvature would be incredibly small,
far to observe using your "…own personal
experience…. I don't know what your
experience is but it is probably due to the
assumption that the earth is a perfect
sphere which is which it certainly is not,
particularly over small distances.

QUESTION:
Our class was discussing the observer
effect in the triple-slit experiment. I
understand it pretty well up until the
observer effect comes into play. If no one
is observing the outcome, how do you know
it's not doing the same thing as when you're
observing? This reminds me of the 'if a tree
falls in the woods, and no one is there to
hear it' riddle. It's not really a riddle as
it surely does make a sound be no one was
there to hear it.
ANSWER:
The "observer" is not just someone
standing around watching the experiment.
What it means is that you set up some kind
of measurement apparatus to determine
through which slit the particle passed. That
measurement will destroy the interference
pattern.
QUESTION:
Is it possible to entangle more than two
particles? Is there a limit?
ANSWER:
Not only is it possible, it has
been done. In principle, there is no
limit.
QUESTION:
Quick physics question! If the sun
starts to die could it be restarted with a
trillion nuclear bombs? I know it’s
impossible to make a trillion nuclear bombs,
but if it were possible and the sun was
dying.. what would happen if we tossed said
bombs into the sun? Would the sun explode or
will it reignite
ANSWER:
The reason a star dies is that it runs
out of fuel, mainly hydrogen and some
helium; so unless you can add enough
hydrogen to make a new sun, you cannot
kickstart it somehow because there is
nothing left to restart. One H bomb contains
about 300 kg of hydrogen. One trillion is 1012,
so a trillion bombs would add about 3x1014
kg of hydrogen. The mass of the sun, mostly
hydrogen, is about 2x1030 kg. The
bombs have 16 orders of magnitude less mass
than the sun; so tiny are the bombs that the
sun would not even notice.
QUESTION:
I have an odd question I can't stop
thinking about; I'd love some help, and I'm
doing everything I can to find an answer to
this, including sending messages to multiple
people that may carry the ability to help
me. No this is not a botted message, I'm
writing this in person I assure you. taking
c as the speed of light. Now, considering an
Object moving away from me to my right at
60% of c, if it emits a light towards me
that light will travel towards me at 100% of
c itself. Now the light being emitted
towards me has a relative velocity of 160%
of c to the object it's emitting the light
from. Now let us name the previous object in
question object D, and let us take another
object; object B and say it's moving away
from me to my left at 60% of c. Now the
light being emitted from object D is
traveling at c relative to me, and 60% of c
relative to object B, and the light is also
traveling towards object B, and we can
safely assume it's bound to reach object B
at some point. This is from my perspective
as an observer (which we shall state as an
observer on object A) at rest relative to
objects B and D. Now as Special Relativity
states, as long as an object is moving at a
constant velocity it's safe to assume in
relation to another object that it very well
may be at rest and the other object may be
moving. Knowing Special Relativity doesn't
constrain relative speed if we shift our
frame of reference to object B, we observe
object A moving away from the speed of light
from object B but we do not observe object D
or any light emitted from it as it is moving
away from us faster than the speed of light
(I'm going to assume it's possible because
of relative speeds), however considering out
frame of reference from object A, we clearly
saw light from object D reach object B, here
lies my confusion. What is actually
happening? Do I lack a good understanding of
special relativity hence I give rise to
faulty and stupid questions? I'm eagerly
waiting for a response, please let me know.
ANSWER:
This question should really be thrown
out because it is neither concise nor
well-focused as stipulated in the site
ground rules. However, I can address it
concisely so I will answer it. Yes, you do
"…lack a good understanding of special
relativity…"; the speed of light in vacuum
is the same for all observers. You should
see an
earlier answer discussing velocity
addition in special relativity. Using
v'=(u+v)/[1+(uv/c2)]
for your first situation, v=c and
u=0.6c, v'=1.6c/(1+0.6)=c;
both observers see the same speed of the
light.
QUESTION:
I am attempting to figure out the
pressure or impact the following would
exert. Picture a square plate (filter
plate), 48" X 48", 2" Thick, 125lb... These
plates are, hanging, supported by two
top-mounted angle iron bars. The plate
supports have rollers at each end and the
plates while hanging can be slid for
cleaning. The Question: If one of that
support (hanging the plate) would fail, and
the plate would swing (one holder still
intact) approximately 2 ft. and strike an
object; what impact pressure and strike
force would be applied? Summary: Square
plate, appx. 125lbs. swinging appx. 4 ft.,
what would the impact be when the plate
strikes an object?
ANSWER:
I am not sure that I get the picture
from your description. Seems like the plate
rotates about a horizontal axis along one
edge and swings until it is vertical as
shown edgewise in my sketch. Is this right?
I will proceed assuming that this is right.
What I can do, assuming that there is
negligible friction of the pivot and the
plate, is calculate the angular velocity of
the plate when it is vertical, how fast it
is rotating. However, I should warn you that
it is impossible to answer your question
because the answer depends on the nature of
the collision between the plate and whatever
it is colliding with. Let me give you a
couple of examples to demonstrate that your
question cannot be answered without a lot
more information. Pressure is the force
divided by area. So if a small object is
struck and experiences some force F,
it will experience a larger pressure than a
large object experiencing the same force
would. Also, note that the speed of the
plate close to the pivot but gets larger
farther away from the pivot; therefore, the
pressure during colliosion increases as you
get farther from the pivot. Now, how do you
compute the force? When the plate hits some
object, the object experiences some average
force which is equal to the change in the
linear momentum Δmv (its mass m
times its speed v) divided by the
time t the collision acted, F=Δmv/t.
To illustrate, imagine two balls, each
having a mass m, one hard like a
billiard ball and another which is very
squishy. When the plate strikes the billiard
ball, the ball will take off almost
immediately, in a very short time, so the
average force over that time will very
large. When the plate strikes the squishy
ball, they will remain in contact far longer
so the average force will be much smaller.
This also is why if you fall onto concrete
you get hurt much more than if you fall onto
a mattress. Given the fact that to answer
your question, even approximately, is
impossible without more information, I will
stop now.

FOLLOWUP
QUESTION:
Let me give you just
a little more information if I may; Here's
the problem I have a worker standing on a
work platform, cleaning, and spraying
"Filter Plates", these are plates on a large
Water Treatment Filter Press. The plates are
"hung" by two top-mounted hangers. They are
in line with each other, and cascade,
pressed to squeeze out water and
contaminants; about 20 plates on the unit.
Concern: If (and it has happened) one of the
plate "Hanging Brackets" breaks, get's
loosen the plate may lose its hanging
capability, not completely fall since the
other hanger is intact, but Swing Out and
possibly strike the worker while they are on
the work platform.
REPLY:
So, we have a uniform 4x4 square hanging
down vertically from supports approximately
at the two corners at the top. One corner
fails and the square rotates about a
horizontal axis through one corner and
normal to the plate? Keep in mind that, as I
explained in the original answer, it is not
possible to simply associate a force with
some moving object, you must have
information about what it hits and how.
Therefore you can only expect an
order-of-magnitude approximate calculation
making assumptions about the collision time
and the angle the square has rotated through
before hitting the worker. Your picture
shows the square to have not yet rotated
through 45° and the corner
hitting the worker approximately in his
trunk. Are those approximately true? Would
it matter if I did my approximate
calculation assuming 45° where
the square would have its greatest speed?
FOLLOWUP
QUESTION:
Subsequent exchanges
with the questioner brought up the following
important point: The rotating stops on its
own by the time it reaches the bottom where,
without friction, it would be moving the
fastest. This means that friction plays a
very important role in this problem. So I
have concluded that the best approach is
more qualitative.


ANSWER:
The figure shows the plate swinging from
one support only. L=4 ft and W=125
lb are the size and weight of the square.
The angle θ denotes how far the
plate plate has rotated from its initial
position, 45°; when θ=0° the center
of the plate is directly below the
suspension point. The length of a diagonal
of the square is 2L/√2 and the
weight acts at the center of the square
(assuming uniform mass distribution). I am
interested in what horizontal force (shown
as F in the
figure) must be applied to hold the plate
from rotating. I am ignoring friction for
now. Summing torques to zero about the pivot
point I find that F=W[sin(θ)/sin(θ+45°)/√2].
The graph shows F plotted as a
function of θ; the required force
is modest, 62.5 lb at the largest, and less
than 40 lb at smaller angles where striking
a worker is more likely. Furthermore, if it
were moving at smaller angles it would be
going slowly because of the frictional
force; also the frictional torque would be
opposing the torque due to the weight and
reduce the necessary force F needed
to bring the system into equilibrium. If it
is going slowly and the torque necessary to
stop it is rather small, I would conclude
that a worker could rather easly just reach
up and grab it to stop it. My only
reservation would be that the suspension
point at the pivot is not designed to be a
pivot and might not always behave the same;
if the friction were such that it would pass
the equilbrium position with a significant
velocity, it could be more dangerous.
QUESTION:
Holding a car FOB against your head will
increase its effective range. For example,
if you are trying to lock/ unlock your car
from a distance and the FOB battery isn't
strong enough to make a strong enough signal
to reach your car, you can hold your car key
against your head... which extends the
effective distance of the FOB by several/
dozens of yards, and may allow you to then
lock unlock your car if you are just out of
your FOB's range. There are many websites
which document this. I know it sounds crazy,
but it's real. What is your opinion
regarding how this trick amplifies the FOB
signal?
ANSWER:
It is not my "opinion", it definitely
works and the reason is very well
understood. The explanation is fairly long
and technical and involves the wavelength of
the beam from the FOB, the size of your
body, the size of your head, resonance, and
the dipolar property of water molecules.
There is a pretty clear yet entertaining
video which you can watch at this
llink.
QUESTION:
Hello, this is to settle an argument
between my brother and I and we can't find
an answer, so I hope you can help us. There
are two soda cans cold out of the fridge,
both at the same temperature and sitting in
the same environment (say on a coffee
table). One can has been opened and the
other remains sealed. Does the can that has
not been opened warm faster because its
still sealed and under pressure.
ANSWER:
Let me first address how heat is
transmitted to and through the interior of
the unopened can. We generally think of heat
transfer as occuring via three ways:
radiation, conduction, and convection.
-
The can has two surfaces, the bottom and
side, where heat may be conducted
through the aluminum directly to the
soda; the third surface, the top, has
aluminum in contact with the gas at the
top through which which heat may be
conducted to the surface of the soda.
The rate (R) of heat transfer
through a medium of thickness t
with a temperature difference ΔT
is proportional to ΔT
and inversely proportional to t,
R=σΔT/t,
where σ is the conductivity;
clearly, since the conductivity of the
gas is much smaller than for the
aluminum and its thickness much larger,
much less heat is conducted through the
top.
- Now, the soda near the inner
surface is warmer than it is inside, so
now the heat could conduct into the
cooler volume. But, in a fluid, heat is
much more efficiently distributed via
convection, currents in the fluid.
Similarly, heat through the gas at the
top of the can will occur much more
efficiently by convection.
- I don't believe that radiation plays
a particularly important role in the
heating of the soda.
So, now, what changes when the top is
opened? As you noted, the pressure in the
gas will decrease meaning a smaller density
and therefore a smaller conductivity. But,
convection will play the major role in the
gas and I believe that the gas will quickly
equilibrate with the outside air; then, the
temperature at the top surface of the soda
will be the same as outside air. Also, the
soda in the open can will be losing its
carbonation, but since there is only about
0.04 oz of CO2 in a 12 oz soda, I
would expect no significant changes in the
properties of the soda as it loses the CO2.
So, I expect the
open can to warm up faster. But, I am not
absolutely positive and suspect that there
will not be a big difference. Here is what I
would do: get an instant read thermometer
and put it in the open can; then wait until
the soda gets to about ¾ of the room
temperature and quickly open the closed can
and measure the temperature. If you do this
experiment, please let me know the result!
QUESTION:
My question is: assuming space was a
perfect vacuum, (for simplification
purposes) as light travels through it, and
then slows down (however minutely)by
entering a planet's atmosphere, once it
passes through the amosphere and re-enters a
vacuum, does it resume (accelerate to) its
original speed or does it remain at the
slower speed caused by the atmosphere?
ANSWER:
In any medium light has a speed v,
a frequency f, and a wavelength
λ. The energy of any single photon is
E=hf where h is Planck's
constant; also, v, λ, and
f are related by v=λf. The
energy of any photon cannot change, so f
remains constant regardless of v.
Therefore when the light moves from the
atmosphere to a vacuum, its wavelength
increases so that v=c where c
is the speed of light in a vacuum.
QUESTION:
Calculate the kinetic energy of a 5,000
kg meteoroid traveling at 11.2 km s-1. If it
were to impact the surface of Earth at this
velocity, what would be the equivalent
strength of the explosion using the units of
Tons of TNT?
ANSWER:
The speed is very small compared to the
speed of light (c=3x108
m/s), so classical mechanics can be used.
The kinetic energy is K=½mv2=3.14x1011
J. 1 Joule (J) is 2.39x10-10 tons
of tnt, so the energy released is 3.14x1011x2.39x10-10=75
tons of tnt.
QUESTION:
I watched the "trip to infinity" doc on
netflix and there was a part that said if
you put an apple in a box, that apple will
eventually decompose but the trapped energy
will eventually create something else. Can
the same concept be applied to humans and
rebirth? Is our body just energy that takes
another shape eventually after we die?
ANSWER:
Assuming you have a box where nothing
can go in or out, you would have an isolated
system consisting of the apple and whatever
air is inside. If there are no bacteria
present there would be no mechanism for
decomposition. Even so, the water in the
apple would evaporate out, eventually drying
the apple. One apparent energy transfer
would be in the form of heat and it would
warm up inside. But, the heat can't escape.
When the water evaporates, some chemistry
might happen inside the apple releasing heat
energy and changing the composition of what
is left of the apple. Etc., etc.,
etc. But you can be sure that the
apple will not eventually become a mouse or
a peach or even a new apple. Putting you in
the box would eventually result in the same
fate as the apple, but you can be sure that
rebirth is not in the cards. Of course,
there is no such thing as a perfect
isolating box and heat, the main result of
the apple's demise, would eventually leak
out and radiate away until the inside and
outside of the box were in thermal
equilibrium.
QUESTION:
In general science class years ago I
learned that when a balloon is inflated and
the stem released, the pressure of the air
in the balloon pressing against the front
side opposite the stem is greater than the
ambient air pressure in front of the balloon
and since the pressure at the stem is being
released, the balloon moves toward the lower
pressure area ahead of it. This is not hard
to understand for a balloon or rocket.
However, I don't understand how this
principle works in a jet engine. Since the
forward end of a jet (particularly a ram
jet) is open also, what is the interior
pressure pushing against to move the jet
forward?
ANSWER: