Physics Discussion Thread
Posted: 13 Oct 2008 12:44
I think a new thread should be started similar to the 'mathmatics' thread that we had, to dicuss interesting topics in Physics. What do you guys think.
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Yeah, I once emailed Dr Ketterle right after he won the Nobel Prize for making the BEC, and he was kind enough to reply back.rsingh wrote:Was at lecture by Professor Wolfgang KETTERLE,( 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) yesterday. He explained his work. Cooling down gas to nano scale ( very near to absolute T) using lasers. That was fascinating stuff. You cool the gas so that it looses it Kinetic Energy and then at nano T you experience Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC). Gas could shrinks to a ball that behaves as particles. Then you cut this by laser and you observe wave interference patterns. In other words you get new properties at super cool temperatures. He talked about super fluids and superconductors. For a non -Physics-type like me it was mind boggling. In the end somebody reminded that "if somebody claim to understand QM, he is overestimating himself". That was helpful for me to regain normal mullah-state -of- mind. Alas human are not dual in nature...........you can not claim to understand fiziks and be mullah at same time
Seconded.RamaY wrote:An excellent book for starters "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukov....
But what if it is the other way around i.e. the Physicist claims being a Vedantist ? Erwin Schrodinger who gave the Schrodinger Wave Equation was a well known vedantist. Here I reproduce his quote from International Berkeley Society forum(http://www.ursasoft.com/discus/messages ... 20010703am)Rye wrote:Many islamic mullahs claim such things about the Quran "being very scientific" too.
Not so fast. If Science does not show a connection with spirituality then it does not comment about a disconnect either. Science is neutral about it and not taking either extremes. Besides Science is very adaptive. Once proven wrong it quickly adapts a new logic. Physics once claimed that Heat was an invisible fluid called Caloric which flowed from a hot body to colder body and changed its stance with Count Rumford's canon ball drilling experiments. Many Count Rumfords in future will disprove what is widely accepted today in Science.Rye wrote:Spirituality has nothing to do with Physics given what we know today
true in general but depends a little on how we define science or physics.There is no "Indian" and "Western" perspectives to science -- that's the nature of Physics and science in general.
Rahul,if we define science as "study and characterisation of nature" then of course there can be no Indian/western version of science.
in that I find terms like hindu mathematics/islamic science to be oxymorons. add "christian science" monitor to that !
Notation has to be separated from the theory itself usually, the core results can be expressed in different equivalent notations -- after all "notation" is a mental invention to formalize a certain way of thinking.however, you can define science as the way of investigating nature.
that being said, the tradition of doing science and mathematics differed widely in the various civilizations especially ones that had little or no contact with outsiders. as an example you will find that mathematical formulae were expressed in India as sutras unlike the notations used in the west.
The flip side is that notation that is not concise usually limits thinking -- the notation that usually survives over time is the most intuitive one, and even that changes when newer discoveries leave older notation insufficient, so it is an evolutionary process.now people may think that notation is trivial but it is decidedly not.
a radically different notation necessarily requires and demonstrates a completely different way of thinking.
That's not necessarily true because the human mind can fool itself into misunderstand reality, so the designer, observer, and result analyzer are all made independent to reduce the chance for false positives, i.e., concluding there is a scientific basis for believing something, when there isn't. Even there, if the people conducting the experiment are measuring the wrong variables, the result will mostly be gibberish (at worst) or inconclusive (at best).the ancient Indians (and the chinese too AFAIK) therefore represented completely different ways of doing science that are now completely lost to us with little chance of a revival.
it could be that those ways of thinking would have left the western way of doing science in the dust if they continued or it could be that they would have met dead ends we won't know either way.
The direction of development of theories comes from astute observations on the nature of reality. The order is 1) observe 2) hypothesize 3) verify The first two require creativity and the third requires honesty and objectivity.The concept that there is no 'Eastern or Western' perspective on science in my opinion is misguided. Sure theories need to be backed up by facts to be legitimate but tell me how do you develop the THEORIES themselves?
intuition alone gets you nowhere, if you cannot explain the intuition in terms of real terms. Also, it is not all intuition, sometimes the important intuitions only come because of anomalies/discrepancies in the experimental results, which leads to confirmation that the current theory may have holes in it.Science is a lot more intuitive than many people realize, its not just about boring numbers and conducting experiments over and over again.
That does not mean that the imagination is of any use without the knowledge. Einstein was completely aware of the cutting edge of Physics in his time when he came up with his theories of relativity -- he was completely knowledgable in his domain. The creativity that comes after acquiring all that knowledge is more important and useful. Else it would be reinventing some wheel that was already invented eons ago.Even Eisntein stated that "imagination is more important than knowledge". Bascially coming up with an idea requires inspiration and ideas can be different from different cultures.
that is not quite how it happened -- Morley-mitchelson and others did experiments that proved that the speed of light is a constant in all directions. Einstein's own theories are based on this fact -- any of the books by Gamow will show you that the ideas did not arise out of a vaccum but arose from existing popular results back in the day when Physics was considered "cool".As another example, Einstein came up with the theory of relativity which radically changed our world view. This was an inspiration that he had and later proved.
The typical order of inventing new theories and ideas is (a) understand current works (b) critique current works to see if they stand up to scrutiny -- if not, pick up loose threads and see if the sweater unravels (c) if the current ideas are sound, then determine the unanswered questions in the field at the time and find out what are the conceptual difficulties that stop development of a field in specific directions.The ability to come up with these ideas themselves can be different according to different cultures. Therefore when i speak of physics from an 'Indian perspective', im interested in physics ideas about mysterious concepts like space, time, consciousness, etc from an indian perspective which can be different from western perspectives but still needs to be inline with the scientific process.
jamwal wrote:Is there any good source for String Theory? By good, I mean easy for a layman like me. Has there been any progress lately?
zweibach's "first course in string theory" is the only novice textbook. you are still expected to know most of your undergrad quantum/e&m/wave mechanics etc.jamwal wrote:Is there any good source for String Theory? By good, I mean easy for a layman like me. Has there been any progress lately?
Might want to take a look at this:Vivek Sreenivasan wrote:when i speak of physics from an 'Indian perspective', im interested in physics ideas about mysterious concepts like space, time, consciousness, etc from an indian perspective which can be different from western perspectives but still needs to be inline with the scientific process.
einstein actually said he didn't know of MM experiment at the time and the subsequent theory of GTR was certainly not based upon any experimental observation.that is not quite how it happened -- Morley-mitchelson and others did experiments that proved that the speed of light is a constant in all directions. Einstein's own theories are based on this fact -- any of the books by Gamow will show you that the ideas did not arise out of a vaccum but arose from existing popular results back in the day when Physics was considered "cool".
Paul Olum suspected that when Feynman wanted to know what an electron would do under given circumstances, he merely asked himself, "If I were an electron, what would I do?"
Correct, but there are other theories that speed of light was faster during the early universe and has since slowed down -Rye wrote:I thought speed of light was only affected by the medium of transmission...it is time that slows down in the frame of reference of a body as it approaches the speed of light.
ramana! so surprised you remember...ramana wrote:So Jo, What are you upto nowadays? Havent seen you in quite few years! Are you inot your doctrate?