Questions tagged [physics]
For questions about the scientific discipline that concerns itself with analyzing the laws of nature in full generality. It is one of the largest branches of natural science. Before applying this tag to a question, please consider using the "theoretical-physics" or "experimental-physics" tags instead, as they are more descriptive.
613
questions
0
votes
0answers
18 views
How did Einstein make the connection between the special and general relativity?
The world famous thought experiments about chasing light beams and accelerating elevators gave Einstein insight into the Nature of spacetime.
The chasing lightray experiment hinted at the ...
-1
votes
1answer
101 views
How come that the “heroes” in physics are gone?
I'm not sure if this question can be answered objectively but I still ask.
Once upon a time there were people like Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Feynman, Curie, Tesla, Dirac, Schrödinger, maybe Chopra, ...
2
votes
0answers
34 views
On the origin of “sandwiches” in quantum mechanics
The term "sandwich" and the verb "to sandwich" appear pretty common but informally in quantum mechanics. Generally when describing some kind of inner product of the form:
$$\langle ...
2
votes
2answers
158 views
Why is periodic motion always represented as a sine function
Why was periodic motion started to be represented as a sine function at the beginning? Is it because it is perhaps the simplest periodic function? Is there certainly any reason behind this ...
0
votes
1answer
45 views
Was Einstein's “Maschinchen” a predecessor of the photomultiplier tube?
Einstein once got involved in true experimental physics. That is, he designed his little machine (Maschinchen, in German, a word that makes me laugh; Einstein's Maschinchen...) to detect small ...
0
votes
0answers
34 views
How was the first calculation of the g-factor done?
Dirac said the magnetic g-factor (a measure of the electron's wiggling in a magnetic field) is exactly 2. Quantum field theory introduced a g-factor that diverged a bit from 2. It needs an increasing ...
2
votes
1answer
57 views
+100
Earliest numeric value for helium D3 line
In late 1868, Norman Lockyer discovered the existence of the D3 emission line of helium in the solar spectrum. What was the earliest published example of a numeric value for the wavelength of this ...
0
votes
0answers
65 views
What was the attitude towards atoms around the turn of the nineteenth century?
Einstein invented, on his own, a statistical mechanics, presupposing the existence of atoms. I can't imagine he was unaware of the shortly-before-invented statistical approach by Boltzmann and others, ...
2
votes
4answers
250 views
Whatever happened to quaternions?
Quaternions were made up by Hamilton. They are an extension of complex numbers. It is said that he first introduced "3d tertions". He was thinking what the relation between i and j had to be ...
1
vote
0answers
45 views
Where there scientists before Einstein who viewed space(time) as being elastic?
Einstein was the first who saw spacetime as a mallable substance to be malled with mass. As far as I know there were no people who suggested such a view of spacetime before him. But I could be wrong.
...
0
votes
0answers
63 views
About Newton's apple
I read:
Suddenly – boink! -an apple hits him on the head. “Aha!” he shouts, or perhaps, “Eureka!” In a flash he understands that the very same force that brought the apple crashing toward the ground ...
1
vote
1answer
166 views
Why didn't the phase space formulation of Quantum Mechanics get the upper hand?
At university I learned quantum mechanics in or position or momentum variables. Later (in fact on this site), I learned about the phase space formulation in which both are used at the same time.
The ...
-3
votes
0answers
137 views
How did the ancient Indian sages know speed of light?
There is a shloka in the Rig Veda, which mentions the value of speed of light.
तथा च स्मर्यते योजनानां सहस्त्रं द्वे द्वे शते द्वे च योजने एकेन निमिषार्धे- न क्रममाण नमोऽस्तुते- ॥ (Devnagari script)
...
-1
votes
0answers
41 views
Can we find clues in the archives of science why physicists chose to say goodbye to determinism after the introduction of QM?
It is a well-known fact that quantum mechanics states that ďeterminism does not exist on a fundamental level. On that level, Nature is inherently probabilistic.
That is, that is how the theory is ...
2
votes
0answers
70 views
Was Becquerel's discovery of radioactivity inspired by his father?
Becquerel was awarded the Nobel prize for his discovery of radioactivity. He was researching phosphoresence and decided one day to place the stuff he used in a drawer to keep it out of the sun. He put ...
17
votes
11answers
4k views
What are examples of serendipity in the history of the sciences and math?
Cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered after Penzias & Wilson couldn't get rid of the noise generated by their horn. In fact, the noise was their discovery.
The strings in string ...
1
vote
0answers
57 views
Is there any literature or articles which expand more on Einstein's thoughts about Dostoyevsky's novels?
It is a well known fact that he admired Dostoyevsky even more than scientists. I'm looking for things like, Einstein's opinions about his religious discourse? What did he think of his bold statements ...
-2
votes
0answers
45 views
Did the sages that composed the earliest version of Surya Siddhanta know for certain that the Sun is not a planet and the Moon not a star?
The Vedic jyotisha acquaints us with the navgraha which includes 'Surya' (by which term the Sun is meant in India today) & 'Chandra'(a modern Indian term meaning the Moon) while it excludes the ...
0
votes
0answers
36 views
Did proponents of classical and statistical thermodynamics get along well with each other?
Proponents of classical thermodynamics believed the subject matter to be continuous, while the statistical thermodynamics proponents' subject matter was made up of atoms and variations of collectives ...
3
votes
1answer
102 views
What does the Fourier transform have to do with heat?
For example the current version of the Fourier analysis article on Wikipedia says the study is:
[…] named after Joseph Fourier, who showed that representing a function as a sum of trigonometric ...
2
votes
0answers
31 views
How did Mach's view on spacetime differ from Einstein's?
We can read in Wikipedia:
Mach's principle, in cosmology, hypothesis that the inertial forces experienced by a body in nonuniform motion are determined by the quantity and distribution of matter in ...
1
vote
0answers
62 views
What inspired the use of the term “gauge” in gauge theories?
Gauge theories in physics are theories that introduce extra fields, the mediating fields, after the non-mediated fields are gauged.
Now to gauge something means that you set some reference point from ...
0
votes
0answers
20 views
What can be said about Galileo's tower experiment? Did it take place? [duplicate]
In Wikipedia we can read that Galileo didn't actually performed his tower experiment:
According to the story, Galileo discovered through this experiment that the objects fell with the same ...
1
vote
0answers
53 views
Did aesthetics play a role in the construction of the Standard Model?
The Standard Model is a sophisticated mathematical framework to capture the behavior of elementary particles. It is a dream castle which is built on loose sand and every change in its construction or ...
1
vote
1answer
77 views
Before the advent of the quark model, was there evidence that the hadrons were composite structures?
When the quark model wasn' t there yet, was there evidence that hadrons are composite structures? In hindsight of course yes. But at the time back then, were there signs? Maybe not noticed, but which ...
1
vote
1answer
75 views
When was the concept of “Power” defined?
I know the Watt, as a unit of measuring power was defined somewhere in early 1900's.
But who was the first physicist to consider "work over time"? Perhaps Newton?
Problem with searching ...
4
votes
1answer
195 views
Why did the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics got the upperhand?
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is nowadays the interpretation that prevails over other interpretations (or theories). Basically, it states that all processes in Nature are ...
0
votes
0answers
38 views
Why can't it be said that Lorentz invented Special Relativity? [duplicate]
It is well known that Lorenz found the transformations of space and time to account for the observations made by Michelson and Morley. Before their experiments, an absolute aether was supposed to ...
1
vote
1answer
47 views
First occurrence of the Langevin function in scientific literature
The Langevin function $\mathcal{L}(x) = \mathrm{coth}(x) - \frac{1}{x}$ is named after the French physicist Paul Langevin (1872-1946).
The Wikipedia article on the Brillouin and Langevin functions ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Who first proposed the theory of tidal locking?
I'm interested in the history of the concept of tidal locking but haven't been able to find any articles presenting a timeline of its development. I'm hoping to have a look at the first published ...
3
votes
3answers
168 views
Best history of Maxwell and his equations
I've done my B.S. in Electrical Engineering as well as mathematics but I'd like to get a proper, or complete history of Maxwell and the history of his derivation of the equations and the newness of ...
1
vote
0answers
77 views
Who first defined velocity and acceleration?
I'm asking who was the first to use and define velocity and acceleration in the modern, now standard way, with velocity being the first derivative of position and acceleration being the second ...
1
vote
1answer
88 views
Did anyone ever propose a hypercomplex numbers system with more than one anisotropic axis?
The real number axis is asymmetric against zero: for instance, multiplication of two negative or two positive numbers will produce a positive number, a square root of a negative number is not real, ...
1
vote
0answers
49 views
Was Kants theory of space and time inspired by that of colour?
Kants theory of space, time and causality is that they are the very forms of experience and ground all the other phenomena that we can experience. He called them the forms of sensibility.
Kant studied ...
1
vote
0answers
84 views
Is there any evidence that Einstein knew of Cliffords speculation on the nature of gravity and electromagnetism?
Around 1870, William Clifford published a short note in The Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society describing all forces as an aspect of the curvature of space.
This is the basis of ...
2
votes
2answers
182 views
A technical and historical introduction to quantum mechanics
I am curious to understand the history of QM. In particular, how did the physicists conclude that observables can be treated as operators, or the use of complex state spaces, or that Eigenvalues of ...
0
votes
0answers
89 views
How is it possible that Pierre and Marie Curie's daughter Ève was so healthy?
I know that problems caused by radiation are pretty much random and unexpected at low levels of exposition but this randomness begins to be more probable when the exposition grows and this makes me ...
1
vote
1answer
171 views
Who named Black Hole?
A black hole is a compact region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, even light, can escape from its event horizon, and, interestingly, Einstein didn't accept this viewpoint. Now, I'...
2
votes
2answers
104 views
History of rotational / rigid body mechanics
In teaching introductory mechanics classes, I like to give my students a much-abridged sketch of some history of mechanics, starting with Aristotle and ending with Galileo and Newton. Most of the ...
3
votes
0answers
26 views
History of experimental verification of the identity of voltaic and static electricity and references
What where the crucial experiments which showed the identity of voltaic and static electricity? How did the experiments work in detail and what are the original references for it?
In "A History ...
3
votes
0answers
48 views
How did the concept of work being the dot product of force and displacement come into existence?
Well this is really a silly question. However I am curious to know about this topic.
Concept of each of the quantities discussed in physics have come into existence based on some basic human thoughts. ...
0
votes
0answers
30 views
In which year the notion of star death started?
In which year, does the fact: every star will ultimately die came in to existence?
3
votes
1answer
55 views
When was “Faraday's Law of Induction” first expressed in a quantified form?
An often used definition of "Faraday's Law of Induction" goes something like this (found in Wikipedia)
The electromotive force around a closed path is equal to the negative of the time rate ...
0
votes
0answers
101 views
Gravity's Rainbow: An accidental nominal similarity in science and literature?
There is an interesting extension of Einstein's Special Relativity, known as Doubly Special Relativity (presented after 2002) in which there is not only an observer-independent maximum velocity (i.e., ...
0
votes
0answers
137 views
4
votes
2answers
198 views
Who discovered the wave equation?
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-5772-8_2
says:
Using Newton's recently formulated laws of motion, Brook Taylor
(1685–1721) discovered the wave equation by means of physical ...
2
votes
0answers
66 views
How was it discovered that the Magnetic force was orthogonal to the B-field and the velocity of the charged particle?
Forces like the gravitational and the electric force are in the direction of the force field. Why is it that the magnetic force is orthogonal to the velocity of the charge and the magnetic field? Was ...
2
votes
1answer
91 views
How did Newton originally formulate the Law of Cooling?
I am searching for Newton's original formulation of the Law of Cooling. In his article (p.140-143), Newton said:
"For the heat which the hot iron communicates in a given time to cold bodies ...
2
votes
1answer
125 views
What is the history of the use of the word daughter for a decay product in nuclear physics?
I was browsing the book Isotopes: Principles and Applications by Faure and Mensing and I would like to know what is the history of the use of the word daughter for a decay product. It seems to me that ...
0
votes
0answers
80 views
How did Einstein arrive at the result that mass and energy affect pairs of points in spacetime (the curves joining them)?
I understand that the relationship between the metric tensor* and the four-momentum flux across the surfaces of constant $x^\nu$ coordinate is described by Einstein's field equations. My question is &...
