Questions tagged [physics]
For questions about the scientific discipline that concerns itself with analysing the laws of nature in full generality
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Did Maxwell originally write his equations using quaternions?
I read somewhere, some time ago that Maxwell originally wrote his eponymous equations using the formalism of quaternions and it was only the later intervention of Gibbs and Heaviside that put them ...
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Did Feynman develop QED based on Stueckelberg's manuscript?
I found some rumors on the internet regarding Stückelbergs manuscript and it's role for the development of QED.
In a comment on here somebody writes:
Crease and Mann say in their book The Second ...
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What exactly was the Rutherford model of the atom?
I was recently doing research on the "Rutherford model" of the atom. I found that there seem to be three different accounts of Ernest Rutherford's theory circulating online:
Electrons move ...
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Where did Rayleigh derive the ultraviolet catastrophe?
Where can I find this paper:
J.W. Strutt, Verh. d. deutsch. phys. Ges. 2, 65 (1900).
It is presumably where Rayleigh derived the black-body radiation formula (the incorrect one that has ultraviolet ...
user2831
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Are there any famous physicists that never went to university?
With the restriction of physicists after the year 1900, were there any self-taught physicists that achieved fame without having gone to university?
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Who discovered that different objects accelerate at the same rate due to gravity?
The concept of the constant acceleration for different objects due to gravity (at the same height and ignoring atmospheric effects) is usually attributed to Galileo. In reality, Galileo merely ...
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Who did say that anyone who discover a new particle should be fined instead of receiving a prize?
I am almost sure I read once that a famous physicist said that anyone who discover a new particle should be fined instead of receiving a prize. The context was that at the time there was more and more ...
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Who is the father (if there is one) of string theory?
I have read a variety of articles and books about string theory that relate the various initial discoveries that ultimately lead to a theory we know now as "string theory" (and its descendants such as ...
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What 19th century developments contributed to the General theory of Relativity?
Regarding General Theory of Relativity, I'm interested to find out whether there are some contributors to this theory in 19th century or not. In fact I want to know whether there are some physicists ...
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When was atomism first considered a scientific theory?
Of course it is difficult, if not impossible, to know whether classical philosophers that talked about atomism thought that "atoms" could be manipulated by men. However, I was startled to know that ...
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Did Bruns establish that the 3 body problem has no non-trivial conservation laws?
I'm reading Colin Pask's book Magnificent Principia and in 16.7.2 he states that the difficulty of the 3 body problem is in part tied to the lack of additional conservation laws at our disposal. In ...
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When was the measurement problem solved?
I have been looking into the measurement problem that arises when considering different interpretations of quantum mechanics. Nowadays it seems to be considered a solved problem (in fact some people ...
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What is the history of electric current and resistance?
Thomas Kuhn writes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Part of what the acceptance of Ohm’s Law demanded was a redefinition of both ‘current’ and ‘resistance’; if those terms had continued ...
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Where did Master equations come from, and why are there so many of them?
The Wikipedia article about the Master equations describes pretty well how many there are and what kind of equations are called "Master equations".
Does anyone know where the term originates, why ...
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Why are microwaves called "microwaves", when they are much longer than a micrometer?
If "millimeter waves" have a wavelength of about 1 mm, one might linguistically expect microwaves to have a wavelength of about three orders of magnitude less, not the same or greater. How did ...
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What was the reaction to Kepler's *Somnium* when it was published?
Kepler's Somnium ("The Dream") is a work of fiction that is sometimes regarded as the first example of science fiction (e.g. by Carl Sagan). In it, Kepler describes a journey to the Moon and various ...
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When were the modern notions of work and energy created
Reading through Wikipedia says that Coriolis was the first to introduce the notion of work, described as "weight lifted through a height".
Our modern conception of work is of a force that realizes a ...
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What are some of the most complete genealogies of scientific and mathematical subject areas?
I am interested in the way scientific and mathematical subject areas developed (and are still developing). One of the great visual tools that can help us gain insight in how these areas developed is ...
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How did Kepler infer three-dimensional positions from Tycho Brahe's data?
This has bugged me for some time.
Tycho Brahe's data on planetary observations, presumably, consisted of the direction in which a planet was observed at a given date and time, but not the distance to ...
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What exactly was Lagrange's "grave mistake" with respect to rotating bodies under hydrostatic equilibrium?
A comment below What would be different about satellite orbits if Earth were prolate? Would we have Sun-synchronous and Molniya orbits? got me reading Wikipedia's Jacobi ellipsoid which begins:
...
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Who is the lady on the image? [closed]
I stumbled upon the following napkin (yes, a napkin) and was wondering who the lady on the picture is:
She is surrounded by some basic mathematical functions, as well as physical equations which ...
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Why did Galileo express himself in terms of ratios when describing laws of accelerated motion?
I opened the same question on Physics Stack Exchange, but it seems more suited for this site.
I've been reading about Galileo's experiment with inclined planes, and he ends up saying something along ...
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Which physicist is this quote attributed to?
There is a quote from a 19-20th century scientist that goes (and I am paraphrasing):
New scientific theories are never accepted until old scientist die.
Who is this cynical quote attributed to, ...
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Textbook on the History of General Relativity
I have studied General Relativity from various textbooks already, and the subject fascinated me immensely. I was wandering if there is any textbook that deals with the chronological "steps" that ...
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Electromagnetics and vector calculus
A friend of mine claims that vector calculus was invented to do electrodynamics. I'm dubious. I know that Maxwell first wrote down the so-called Maxwell's equations in scalar form and only later ...
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When did physicists begin using the symbol $G$ for Newton's gravitational constant?
The Cavendish experiment was equivalent to measuring $G,$ Newton's gravitational constant. However, because physicists at the time did not write equations in the same way we do now, Cavendish didn't ...
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Why do Maxwell's equations bear his name?
Maxwell's equations in their modern differential form are:
$\nabla \cdot \mathbf{E} = \dfrac {\rho} {\varepsilon_0}$ (Gauss's law for electricity)
$\nabla \cdot \mathbf{B} = 0$ (Gauss's law for ...
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Why did Aristotle make mistakes in his laws of motion?
I was studying Aristotle's laws of motion and comparing them to Newton's. He states that heavier bodies fall faster than lighter ones. I really can't understand how he could have committed such a ...
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Why is magnetic flux density named after Nikola Tesla?
I have my respect for Mr Tesla, but it seems weird that "he" was chosen to be the units of magnetic flux density. I mean, he didn't contribute much to magnetic fields theory, nor did he work ...
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When were fictitious forces introduced
Some problems in mechanics are simplified by considering the action of "fictitious forces". These appear in accelerated frames, such as circular movements. When were these first considered so? Did ...
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How did artillery and physics co-evolve during 1400-1700?
Artillery was established in Europe around the year 1400. But physics, the mathematical and systematical description of how objects fall, the foundation of engine construction, didn't dawn until about ...
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Did Sophie Germain find a flaw in Euler's equations for elastic vibrations?
I am a playwright working on a play about Sophie Germain. When Sophie was competing for the prix extraordinaire to find effective formulas to describe the vibrations of elastic surfaces, she believed ...
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What was the real need of divergence and curl operators?
As I'm advancing my study in Electromagnetism I'm getting introduced to more mathematical operators which are exclusively used in Electromagnetism and Fluid Dynamics only.
Let me try to explain myself ...
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Did Einstein really say: "If I were wrong, it would only take one."
The story is that Einstein was shown a German newspaper that claimed "One hundred German physicists claim Einsteins theory of relativity is wrong." Einsteins reply was supposedly, "If I were wrong, it ...
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Did Galileo perform an experiment at the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
Galileo's pupil Viviani said that Galileo dropped unequal weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa and observed them to take equal times to hit the ground. Galileo's own writings do not describe such an ...
user466
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Did physicists correct an error of mathematicians in counting twisted cubics in the quintic?
One problem in enumerative geometry consists in counting the number of rational curves of degree $d$ in the plane going through $n$ general points. If $n = 3d-1$, this number, denoted $N_d$, is finite ...
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Is there an etymological dictionary of terms in physics?
There are of course many physics dictionaries and glossaries and some words can be found in general etymological dictionaries and even English dictionaries; but is there a Physics Etymological ...
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When and how did the notion/idea of physical constant emerge?
Physical constants (e.g. c, h, G, alpha and so on) play a central role in our scientific theories and they have yet drawn much of controversial flavor into questions concerning the foundational status ...
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When was the geometric structure of a water molecule discovered?
How and when was water the structure of a water molecule (specifically the angles) discovered?
Was it discovered by using a specific type of spectroscopy?
I know you can derive these angles ...
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Did Ibn Al-Haytham believe that the Moon reflects sunlight or that it is self-luminous?
There are at least two articles about Ibn Al-Haytham in Encyclopedia First and Second
Both these articles have one major difference that is according to the First article:
The Light of the Stars (III ...
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Who was this man (who is not Bruno Pontecorvo)?
The English-language Wikipedia article about physicist Bruno Pontecorvo is illustrated with this photo:
Now, this man seems distinctly different from most portraits of Pontecorvo around:
The ...
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Who was the first scientist to suggest that objects can keep moving without applied force?
In the old days Aristotels argued that object needs a force to keep going in 'space'. Some philosophers, Philoponus and Buridanus (?), later argued that there was a need for some kind of 'impetus'. ...
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Nobel Prize work derived from Manhattan Project research?
There are quite a few Nobel Prize winners (e.g. Physics) who worked on the Manhattan project in the development of the atomic bomb. But, did any Nobel Prize result from direct research performed on ...
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Who created the energy conditions?
The earliest text I've been able to find that explain the GR energy conditions is "The large scale structure of space-time" (1973) by Hawking and Ellis.
However in Barcelo and Visser's paper "...
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What was the first journal to have Feynman Diagrams?
I'm writing a paper on the history of Feynman diagrams and am having trouble finding the first paper published by Feynman which features a calculation done with Feynman Diagrams.
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Why is it said that Marie Curie died due to her work but the same isn't said for Fermi?
I learnt in school that Marie Curie died from her work at 66 years. On the other hand, Enrico Fermi, who also handled a lot of radioactive substances died of stomach cancer at the age of just 53. It ...
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When was conical refraction predicted and observed?
I was reading James Ladyman's Understanding Philosophy of Science, and came across the following consequence of Fresnel's theory of light:
The phenomenon is known as conical refraction and has now ...
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Was Einstein the first person to think of the equivalence of a ball drop in an accelerated elevator and a ball drop on Earth?
Consider the following figure taken from Wikipedia.
Was Einstein the first person to think of the equivalence of a ball drop in an elevator with acceleration of $g$ and a ball drop on Earth?
To be ...
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Who first discussed the Lorentz force with respect to special relativity?
The fact that a Lorentz force in a reference frame 1 can become a Coulomb force in another reference frame 2 has always astonished me, especially because the velocities involved are really small.
I ...
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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 $\bf i$ and $\bf ...
