HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mcfarlan@corona.math.washington.edu (Thomas J. McFarlane)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Report on Philosophies of Physicists
Date: 28 Aug 92 21:15:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug28.211530.12229
Organization: University of Washington, Mathematics, Seattle

barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:
>
>I'd think that if you learned anything from the survey, it
>would have been that this mushy, warm fuzzy philosphy is not the
>way to understand nature. You should be distressed by the way 
>philosophical tracts such as the Tao of Physics and Dancing Wu-Li 
>Masters have warped physics to fulfil some philosphical need, and
>sucked you into their fantasy. I can't believe you want to follow
>in their footsteps.
>
>Why not become a _real_ scientist, instead of an intellectual gadfly.
>(I took plenty of philosophy courses---easy way to fulfil humanities
>requirements...:-)

It is sad to see scientists display such a disrespectful and arrogant
attitude toward philosophy.  The slanderous confusion of pop-culture books
with "philosophical tracts" seems to lack the very intellectual respectablity
that is being attacked.  These books are no more philosophical tracts than
they are physics texts.  They deal equally superficially with both.  To
judge philosophy or "Eastern Mysticism" by such accounts is just as dangerous
as to judge physics or "Western Science" by them.

Anyone distressed by superficial books like Tao and Wu-Li might be a
bit comforted by Bernard d'Espagnat's _In Search Of Reality_ and some
of the other genuine philosophical tracts on physics.  

Tom McFarlane
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)
Subject: Re: Rotating Bucket of Water in a Gravitation Field...Part #2
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 12:16:16 GMT

In article <4SEP199201521179@zeus.tamu.edu> wdb3926@zeus.tamu.edu (BRUTON, WILLIAM DANIEL) writes:

>Doesn't this say that there is some absolute inertia frame that
>the rotation is to be measured from?  This reeks of "ether" so it
>must be incorrect.  Were is my error?

You know, this really ought to be a FAQ.  The whole thing starts with
Sir Isaac Newton, who pointed out that, while translational motion is
indetectable unless you have an external reference frame, rotational
motion is absolute.

For instance, if you take a bucket of water onto a railway train, you
cannot tell by observing the bucket whether the train is at rest or in
uniform linear motion - the water remains still and the surface flat.

However, if you take the bucket onto a carousel, you can indeed tell
whether the carousel is at rest or in uniform rotation, since in the
latter case the water climbs the walls of the bucket.  Hence, as
Newton said, even if the Earth were alone in space, you could still
show that it was rotating by taking a bucket of water to the North
pole and observing the fluid surface.

Ernst Mach penned the refutation of this argument.  In fact, like most
thought experiments, it's bogus: the presentation assumes as fact what
could be established as fact only by doing the experiment.  In a famous
passage in his 'Science of Mechanics', Mach commented: "rotate the Heaven
of fixed stars, and see what happens to the water in the bucket".

What many people now believe is that, could we indeed do the experiment,
the water would still climb the walls of the bucket, and that this would
be caused by the rotation about it of the stars.  And if there were no
stars, there would be no effect on the bucket no matter what.  So even
rotational motion is relative.

As a generalisation of this idea, one can speculate that inertial mass
is not an intrinsic property - inertia is the drag on a body caused by
the combined gravitational attraction of the entire universe.  Which is
one explanation, I suppose, of why inertial and gravitational mass are
identical (as far as we can measure), Einstein's Principle of Equivalence.
From: gilligan@bldrdoc.gov (Jonathan Gilligan 303-497-3861)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Axiom of Physics
Date: 27 Aug 92 00:08:27 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology

In article <25781@dog.ee.lbl.gov> sichase@csa3.lbl.gov writes:
>Eventually, one hopes that all axioms undergo direct experimental test,
>verifying the fundmental assumptions of the theory by direct confrontation
>with reality.  At that point, I suppose they loose their status as axioms
>and become experimental facts.

Axiom 1 (due to Galileo): The language of nature is mathematics. You
can claim that this is tested by the success of physics as a
mathematical description of nature, but I'd argue that the statement
is not falsifiable, and hence is in principle untestable.

---Jon

-- 

Disclaimer --- The government probably disagrees with my opinions.
From: sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: quantization of angular momentum
Date: 2 Sep 92 20:50:09 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: na
Reply-To: sichase@csa3.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   

In article <25949@dog.ee.lbl.gov>, sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes...
>In article <mcirvin.715392893@husc8>, mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes...
>>>In <1992Sep1.203830.2793@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>> 
>>>>Ouch!  L is quantized under all circumstances.  Its eigenvalues are
>>>>half-integer multiples of hbar, even for free particles.
>> 
>>Angular momentum, though, always has discrete eigenvalues.
> 
>Angular momentum is not a good quantum number for a plane wave.  So it is not
>correct to say that a plane wave has quantized angular momentum.  John
>is correct that L only has half-integer eigenvalues (in units of h-bar), but
>that is not enough for me to say that a plane wave has quantized L.

Before I get heavily flamed, let me add that I know that every time 
you try to measure L for a plane wave you will in fact get a half-integral
value.  I therefore retract anything which I have written on the issue
which would lead anyone to suggest that I indend to defend the wierd 
position I seem to have taken on this issue.

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"The question seems to be of such a character
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		that if I should come to life after my death
				and some mathematician were to tell me that it
				had been definitely settled, I think I would
				immediately drop dead again."      - Vandiver
From: hagstrop@oberon.mathcs.carleton.edu (Paul Hagstrom)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: What's new with chaotic dynamics?
Date: 25 Aug 1992 21:28:13 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

I realize that this is an incredibly unfair question to ask, but I will pose it  
anyway, just to see what the response is..

I'm coming up on the time when I have to write a major undergraduate  
("comprehensive") paper having something to do with Physics (my major, or at  
least one of them), and I'm kind of fishing around for ideas.  I've taken an  
introductory course to chaotical dynamical systems, and so I have rudimentary  
terminology and very basic understanding of some of the underlying concepts,  
and I was interested to see what sort of research is going on involving chaotic  
modelling.. 

Of course, the answer to that is probably "everything", but the thing that I  
have been told to keep in mind is that, when others have tried their hand at  
this topic, the main question that the Physics faculty say keeps coming up is:  
"That's all very neat--where's the physics?"  I'm looking for ideas of physical  
phenomena well modeled by chaotic dynamics, so that my end paper doesn't end up  
being entirely an explanation of iteration theory and topology, but at least  
has a firm grounding in some physical phenomenon.  I'm an undergraduate, but I  
will have completed the required undergraduate courses in physics, so I should  
hopefully be able to grasp a fair number of the concepts...

Turbulence?  That occurred to me, but I don't know what's going on in the  
field..

Anyway, feel free to ignore me, but I thought I'd throw this out there..
--
schmotsignature.
Paul Hagstrom
(hagstrop@carleton.edu)
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: FTL
Date: 28 Aug 92 19:44:37 GMT
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: mppu3@syma.sussex.ac.uk's message of 18 Aug 92 08:50:10 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.085010.24910@syma.sussex.ac.uk> mppu3@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Conor McMenamin) writes:


   Nir.Oren@f54.n7101.z5.fidonet.org (Nir Oren) writes:
   : Using the uncertanty principle, is it possible to travel faster than 
   : the speed of light: A particles exact speed can't be mesured 
   : ks>|for an exact period of time, therefore, could one not exceed 
   : the speed of light, if he were then to slow down below it for an 
   : equal ( or slightly greater) amount of time?
 

	   Some people don't know when to leave it. I'm one. How's about
   this. The uncertainty principle states that there is a degree of
   uncertainty in position and velocity such that the product of the two
   uncertainties is greater than or equal to something with a h in it and
   probably some 2 pi's and stuff. (Less chance of being flamed if I keep
   it vague). If something is going at speeds near c, where is it? Try
   pointing at it. Therefore delta x is BIG. And delta v is correspondingly
   small.

Before this goes any further: the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle for
position and velocity is properly stated for position and _momentum_,
you cannot extrapolate from the v = p/m non-relativistic limit.
A proper relativistic treatment shows there is no problem - left
as an exercise for the reader ;-)

|  Steinn Sigurdsson	|I saw two shooting stars last night		|
|  Lick Observatory	|I wished on them but they were only satellites	|
|steinly@helios.ucsc.edu|Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?		|
| "standard disclaimer"	|I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983	|
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: bucknerb@bnr.ca (Brent Buckner)
Subject: Re: FTL Microwave Signal
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ontario, Canada
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 13:33:33 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.182628.26130@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>In article <1992Aug27.160606.7612@bnr.ca> bucknerb@bnr.ca (Brent Buckner) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug26.234131.28949@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>>>In article <1992Aug26.202707.15463@bnr.ca> bucknerb@bnr.ca (Brent Buckner) writes:
>>>>
>>>>1.  We can usefully transform the FTL data transfer into backward-
>>>>    in-time data transfer (essentially, given that the transfer is from
>>>>    A to B, then we can put A and B into sufficiently
>>>>    different frames of reference).
>>>
>>>     This assumption makes absolutely no sense if we are in possession
>>>     of a signal that goes faster than light.   Under those circumstances,
>>>     the assumptions that underlie the theory that gives rise to 
>>>     backward in time behavior are incorrect.
>>>
>>
>>Which assumptions would those be?  We can still do the math for
>>SR (and GR) using c, whether or not there is FTL signalling.
>>Certainly, we would have to refine our notion of causality;
>>this is embedded in assumption 2.
>
>    The assumption that there is a limiting signal velocity.
>

Never having seen this as a basic postulate of SR, I'll have to
bow out.  


-- 
at Bell-Northern Research
voice:        (613) 765-2739
Canada Post:  P.O. Box 3511, Station C, Ottawa, Canada, K1Y 4H7
I do not claim that BNR holds these views.  
Xref: sparky sci.physics:14009 alt.sex:28258
From: arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sex
Subject: Re: BAROMETERS (was Re: Subject?)
Date: 3 Sep 92 02:43:57 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO  80523

[six ways to determine the hight of a building using a barometer]

1) the obvious way:  determine the air pressure differential and divide by
the differntial per foot.

2)use your barometer like a meterstick (one barometer, two barometer, etc) and
measure the barometer, multiply.

3)go to the top of the building, drop the barometer off, and see how long it takes to hit the ground.  

4) go to the superintendant, owner, fire dept, etc. and tell them "I'll give you this barometer if you'll tell me how tall that building is."

5) beat somebody up with the barometer until they tell you how tall the building is.

6) wearing only a barometer, go up to the owner, super, etc, and ask them how tall the building is.  (hey, this is alt.sex)

Big Al.  Okay, so I goofed up #6, YOU try finding a sexual use for a barometer in determining the highth of a building.  (Man, I gotta learn how to spell)
From: kmartin@prism.gatech.EDU (Kevin Martin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Low Temperature (T=4K) LEDs
Date: 28 Aug 92 19:04:16 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

Looking for LEDs that work at T < 4K

Can someone recommend what type of LEDs can emit light at 4K
using a bias voltage less than 10 V.  I have found that red LEDs
pulled from a drawer (don't ask me what type, I really was just
rooting around) can be biased to emit light at 77K, but they fail
somewhere between 4K and 77K.  

Or is this a case of "many are called but few chosen" and you
just keep on testing them by the fistful till one passes the T=4K
-- 
Kevin Martin
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:	  ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!kmartin
Internet: kmartin@prism.gatech.edu
From: snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Radar Invisibility
Keywords: Physics humor
Date: 3 Sep 92 07:21:45 GMT
Reply-To: snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us



In article 41810 crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:

>In article <4110@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us> snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us writes:
>>>     An  example  that immediately comes to mind , when considering metallic
>>>   radar targets such as iron battleships , is the losses that occur in  the
>>>   iron  cores  of  transformers  and  inductive  ballasts (solenoids). In a
>>>   transformer that is delivering power to a load , the energy that  is  not
>>>   transferred  to the load is converted to electromagnetic radiation in the
>>>   form of heat (infrared). What might start out as  a  60  cycle  input  is
>>>   amazingly  upconverted  by  some  process into a THz output!

>>     Shockingly amazing, this conversion of 60 Hz input to an output
>>     with a higher frequency.  What *will* they think of next?

 Message-ID: <BtwMqw.JFA@massive.its.bldrdoc.gov>(Bradley J. Ramsey) writes:

>Stranger still, I have seen this same effect transform DC current (ZERO Hz
>in frequency) to output in the infrared spectrum.  Which order term can
>do that ????

   The  above  comments  seem  to  be  attempts  at  humor,  I think. Yes ,I
   definitely detect humor ...wait,  no.. my laff  -  o  -  scope  has  been
   reading high lately..It's only sarcasm , juvenile grade. Not bad though.

   Now  ,which  of  you  students  knows what physical mechanism creates the
   infrared radiation? Is it

    1. Resistance to current flow in an electric circuit

    2. Reluctance in the magnetic circuit

    3. Redundance in the comedy circuit

    4. Eddy Currents

    5. All of the above

    6. None of the above

    7. Some of the above

   Well kids, which one of you class clowns knows the answer?
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: dgenr8@leland.Stanford.EDU (Tom Harding)
Subject: Re: Facts and Values
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 04:27:39 GMT


In article <25687@dog.ee.lbl.gov> sichase@csa2.lbl.gov writes:
>In article <QeZvN_O00VAwQ0q5AU@andrew.cmu.edu>, ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta) writes...
>> 
>>Scott, the very fact that physics has not shown any need for soul,
>>afterlife, heaven and so on, and the tremendous success of science
>>have given cause for people to doubt the religions they once took
>>for granted.
>
>The Frugal Gourmet has not shown any need for soul, afterlife, or heaven - 
>but people haven't abandoned religion because of him.    You logic is 
>badly flawed.  Physicists are no more capable of addressing these issues
>than Jeff Smith is.  

In fact, Jeff Smith, known to millions as TV's "Frugal Gourmet," is a
protestant minister, and frequently brings up spiritual issues on his
cooking shows.


Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: sci20035@nusunix3.nus.sg (LIM WOOI BENG)
Subject: Re: de Broglie wavelength.....
Organization: National University of Singapore
 
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 04:32:47 GMT

 Yeah , I was refering to the de Broglie's frequency...

		Thanks a lot....

					*The-Edge*
From: baez@ucrmath.ucr.edu (john baez)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: quantization of angular momentum
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:47:56 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of California, Riverside

In article <25947@dog.ee.lbl.gov> sichase@csa3.lbl.gov writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.203830.2793@galois.mit.edu>, jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes...

>>Ouch!  L is quantized under all circumstances.  Its eigenvalues are
>>half-integer multiples of hbar, even for free particles.

>Am I off base here?  If you have a free scalar particle with wave function
>exp(-iEt+px), how is L quantized?

This plane wave is not an eigenfunction of angular momentum.  Go on -
apply the angular momentum operator to it and see!  Any wavefunction
that IS an eigenfunction of angular momentum will have eigenvalue of the
form integer times hbar/2.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore)
Subject: Re: Inertial drive?
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 03:36:33 GMT

In article <0fhS02Go20x701@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> drp40@cd.amdahl.com writes:
>An office mate recently mentioned having heard about something called
>an "inertial drive" which was an enclosed device with some sort of motor
>and geared arrangement which would produce a force in a single direction
>by converting rotational inertia into "linear" (??) inertia.  Sounds 
>pretty bizarre.  Anyone have any details on this?

	It's the basis for a lot of kiddie toys; you know, the ones you
run along the floor when you're six years old?  

	There's a flywheel inside, and a gear system, that connects
to the wheels; rub the wheels briskly on the floor (this is the friction
part) and you spin up the flywheel.  Then drop the toy and watch
Donald Duck (tm) scoot...

	This is the famed 'friction drive'...which is generally
regarded as a genuine engineering application.  Other devices 
that purport to use flywheels to deliver thrust either use
similar effects, or don't work.

	John Whitmore
From: jcbhrb@nic.cerf.net (Jacob Hirbawi)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: RE: Satellite spying
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:05:47 GMT
Organization: CERFnet

In article <17chpmINNma3@agate.berkeley.edu> 
ted@physics3 (Emory F. Bunn) writes:

> But the really fishy thing is that it's better than the resolution that
> Hubble was supposed to get.  The Hubble was supposed
> to be near the theoretical diffraction limit for resolution, which 
> would be about
> wavelength / diameter = 6 x 10^-7 meters / 1.5 meters = 
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>     4 x 10-7 radians = 0.08 arc-seconds.

Perhaps they're using a different wavelength !

After all do you really need 6 x 10^-7 meters to get a resolution
of a few centimeters. The human eye does not give the best example
of wavelength used versus required resolution. Just guessing.

Jacob Hirbawi
JcbHrb@CERF.net
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: Subject?
Organization: University of Virginia
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 18:47:07 GMT

In article <10524@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
>In article <17mijiINN7de@matt.ksu.ksu.edu> lyn@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Myself) writes:
>>
>>    Terminal Velocity- the typing speed at which your keyboard starts to smoke,
>>causing you to either A) slow down to just below said velocity, or B) talk to
>>rec.pyrotechnics.
>>
>>	Well, that clears that up. On to other things (like another type of 
>>							terminal velocity ;-}  )
>
>Not quite.  Terminal velocity is the maximum speed of a terminal dropped 
>from a great height. 

     Wouldn't that be 'terminal terminal velocity', or 'terminal^2 velocity'?

                               dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.skeptic,alt.folklore.science
From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: The dangers in microwaved food...
Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 21:33:45 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.022134.29183@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:

)>I don't recall anything like that.  I recall now that there was a problem
)>with cataracts at *really* high levels, but I believe that was still believed
)>to be due to the heating effects.
)
)    I do not know of any such effect either, except for the fact that
)    arms and legs and eyeballs have marvelous dimensions for developing hot
)    spots under 2.45 GHz irradiation (especially eyeballs).  Babies
)    heads have this same property, though most adults have heads
)    that are too large to build up any substantial hot spots except
)    in their eyes (c.f. Taflove and Brodwin, IEEE Microwave Theory and
)    Techniques MTT-23:888 (1975)).
)
)    Of course, the input power would have to be substantial in order to have
)    any significant heat generation.
)
)    Just another reason to keep kids and hammers away from your microwave...

There was a case someone brought up in the talk where I heard about the topic
(this was brought up by someone in the audience, not the speaker) where a
hospital patient developed cataracts after exposure to a malfunctioning
diathermy machine which put out too much power.  This was not a
low-level/long term risk sort of thing at all.  Nor was it necessarily
repeatable.

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: raistlin@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Brett Cuthbertson)
Subject: sorry all
Organization: University of Western Australia
Distribution: world  
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 03:43:01 GMT

 Sorry about those last three repeated messages...My end of the
connection refused to acknowledge that I had sent the article..ie it
gave me a " Article rejected " message after I waited for ages for
something to happen...and so I re posted it three times...and now it
seems that the article wasn't rejected...

anyway..I know that I should probably ask this question elsewhere..but I
though it's only a brief one..and I don't know where to ask it anyway..

but when using the TIN new program..and you enter the    

	Distribution : World

is that correct? does anyone know?

till later

Newsgroups: sci.physics