HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: caer@iear.arts.rpi.edu (Charlie Figura)
Subject: Vector Bosons?
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:04:51 GMT


Perhaps some of you brilliant minds out there can explain a thing
to me...  somewhere (dont ask me, I dont know where) I heard of such
a thing called a vector boson.  Now, I understand what bosons are,
i.e, particles that obey the Bose-Einstein statistics.  I don't know,
however, what a *vector* boson is.  I've looked in a few basic
particle physics books, and they talk a bit about Intermediate vector
bosons, saying that the Z0 and W+- are these.  They also mentioned
but did not say anything further about Heavy vector bosons.  Can 
someone explain to me what is meant by the term 'vector boson', and
give examples?  The textbooks I found were all graduate level (and
me a poor undergrad, tho not for long... :-) and I had great difficulty
trying to understand them.

Thanks much....

------------------------------------------------------------
Charlie Figura	--  (cholly figura-Daemon) | "Can you sing?"
caer@iear.arts.rpi.edu  |  Y-Flyer  Y-1931 | "A little....
 "So *WHAT* if I'm a physics major??!?!?"  | ..I can dance."
------------------------------------------------------------
   	What is a question that contains the word
     	'canteloupe' for no apparent reason?
From: Richard.Mathews@West.Sun.COM (Richard M. Mathews)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Nevada Casino - 200 miles up
Date: 18 Aug 1992 17:19:50 -0700
Organization: Sunsoft Inc., Los Angeles, CA.
NNTP-Posting-Host: smaug.West.Sun.COM

Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com writes:
>Situation:  I need to place a casino 200 miles over Nevada with a 
>tether below it for elevators.  I have access to 2026 AD technology.  

To stay over Nevada at 200 miles, you would be going so much slower
than orbital speed (about 20 times slower) that centrifugal force is
negligible compared to weight (400 times smaller).  You would need to
build a tower strong enough to support its own weight and that of the
casino (of course, the casino's weight is probably negligible compared
to that of the tower).  The only relevant aspect of the centrifugal force
will be its tangential component.  Build the tower leaning about .1 degree
to the North to compensate for this (does the tower need a curve to it to
correctly compensate centrifugal force at each level?).  Also tilt the
building to adjust for prevailing winds.  Figure out how to deal with
non-prevailing winds and resonances.  How many elevators do you need
to provide adequate throughput when each elevator is tied up on a 400
mile round trip?  How do you provide supplies (including air and water)
to the top?  Studying the currently known problems limiting the height
of super tall buildings would probably be of some help in inventing the
sort of technological advances required to make this possible.  You need
to build something 700 times as tall as the biggest buildings to date!

Richard M. Mathews			Lietuva laisva = Free Lithuania
Internet:   richard@locus.com		Brivu Latviju  = Free Latvia
UUCP:	    ...!uunet!lcc!richard	Eesti vabaks   = Free Estonia
MIL/BITNET: richard%lcc@UUNET.UU.NET	        WE  DID  IT!!!
From: U53272@uicvm.uic.edu (sterrett j collins)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: "What's New" July-24-1992
Date: 12 Aug 92 19:32:07 GMT
 <1992Jul29.010055.3863@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <25023@dog.ee.lbl.gov>
 <1992Jul29.181723.226@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

In article <1992Jul29.181723.226@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) says:
>    By the way, it is certainly not my aim to 'bash' the APS.  I enjoy
>    being a member.  I just do not wish to see my organization promulgate
>    hypocracy over such things as petty funding competition.

Unfortunately, funding competition is a fact of life, at least in
research, petty as it may be.  Are SSF and SSC taking money from other
worthwhile projects?  Definitely Yes.  To say otherwise would be to
decieve yourself.  Does that mean that SSF and SSC are not worthwhile?
This is where there is room for debate.  It is shortsighted to dismiss
as hypocritical anyone who is concerned with how SSC and SSF funding
will affect their own funding.  Perhaps this is not what Dale Bass is
doing, but it sure seems like it.

                                   sterrett collins
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Vector Bosons?
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 18:09:49 GMT

In article <d==y5bh@rpi.edu> caer@iear.arts.rpi.edu (Charlie Figura) writes:
>
>Perhaps some of you brilliant minds out there can explain a thing
>to me...  somewhere (dont ask me, I dont know where) I heard of such
>a thing called a vector boson.  Now, I understand what bosons are,
>i.e, particles that obey the Bose-Einstein statistics.  I don't know,
>however, what a *vector* boson is.  I've looked in a few basic
>particle physics books, and they talk a bit about Intermediate vector
>bosons, saying that the Z0 and W+- are these. 

A vector boson is a boson that transforms like a vector.  That may sound
abstract but it is just another way of saying that the boson has spin 1.
For example a photon is a vector boson.  The W's and Z's are analogous,
except that they carry the weak force rather than the electromagnetic
force; since they are massive the weak force is short-ranged.  (That's
why it seems weak!)  Similarly gluons are vector bosons that carry the
strong force and gravitons are vector bosons rumored to carry gravity.
In gauge field theories forces are always carried by vector bosons.

You need to learn about spin, clearly.  Particles of spin 0 are called
"scalars", particles of spin 1/2 are called "spinors", and particles of
spin 1 are called "vectors".  There's a darn good reason why.
Xref: sparky sci.physics:13354 sci.chem:3157
From: An-Ly Yao <anlyyao@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Date: 22 Aug 92 09:23 PDT
Subject: Re: The dangers in microwaved food.
Nf-ID: #R:1992Aug19.200140.2705@pony.ingre:673038972:cdp:1468500007:000:67
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!anlyyao    Aug 22 09:23:00 1992


Are microwaved Sarfatti Burgers dangerous?

Goetz
Seoul 1992/08/22

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE)
Subject: Re: Superbashing (was Re: SARFATTI LECTURES ON SUPER PHYSICS #1)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 00:58:00 GMT

phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de (Hartmut Frommert) writes...
>The coupling constants are also related in the SU(5) and other GUT's without
>a new concept like SS

This is news to me. Can you provide some more info on what non-SUSY SU(5)
model is still consistent with the data?

Dave Ring
dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jch2@ra.msstate.edu (James C Hamilton)
Subject: Lost Physicist
Keywords: missing person
Organization: Mississippi State University
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 16:36:58 GMT

I have lost track of an old friend and would appreciate your assistance
in finding him. His name is John Palmeri, and he took a Ph.D. in solid
state physics from the Univ of Ill. The last I knew, he was working in
a lab of some sort in or around Paris, France. If any of you has a
society directory or something like that handy, I wonder if you couldn't
please look him up and bit me his address.
thanks. 
:w
D:
:x


D
:    
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@zermelo.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: ORTHODOX SPECIAL RELATIVITY
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 21:16:23 GMT

In article <Aug.13.18.10.50.1992.26657@ruhets.rutgers.edu> bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:

>Extra question: suppose physics was dilation invariant.  What
>conserved quantity would be associated with this symmetry
>(in the Noether's theorem manner, i.e. translation invariance
><=> momentum conservation).  This is not a trick question, I don't
>know the answer.  I would guess, though, that lengths would become
>dimensionless, for whatever that's worth.

It *is* a trick question even though you didn't mean it as one.  There
is no such conserved quantity.  Proof #1: if there was, it would be
applicable to photons and Yang-Mills fields, so you would have heard of
it.  Proof #2: dilation doesn't commute with time translation so the
quantity associated to dilation is not preserved under time translation,
i.e. not conserved.  Note that translations and rotations commute with
time translation and have conserved quantitites but Lorentz boosts
don't.

There is, however, a quantity that has interesting commutation relations
with the generators of the Poincare group.  I don't think it has a name.

I'm going to post something more on dilation symmetry in a while.
From: bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Hubble constant?
Date: 19 Aug 92 22:17:21 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


    [John]
|>>>I have a theory that everyone here on usenet has a superpartner: an evil
|>>>twin that looks just like them but is 1000 times heavier.  The reason
|>>>why nobody has ever seen one of these superpartners is that they never
|>>>make their appointments.  :-)
|>>
   [me]
|>>I'm Dale Bass's evil twin.  Or maybe I'm Dale Bass.  Have you ever
|>>seen me and Dale in the same room at the same time?
|>
|>     I'm about 6'1'', 200 lb.  So, I'd hate to meet *you* in a dark alley.
|>
|>     Where do you buy your suits?
|>
|>                                   dale bass

Easy!
I went into science so I wouldn't have to wear suits, silly.

Ben
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: anderson@fermi.phys.ualberta.ca (Warren G. Anderson)
Subject: Re: BLACKHOLES IN THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 22:03:28 GMT

In article <Bt6xuL.2K2@ecf.toronto.edu> hillp@ecf.toronto.edu (HILL Peter)  
writes:
> 
> BLACKHOLES IN THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH, THE SUN AND OTHER OBJECTS.
>  
> Author: Peter Collin Hill
>  
> Version 1- 27 /7/1992
>  
> Objective:  To open discussion of this topic.  To develop concepts
> presented.
>  
> Abstract:  Miniature blackholes, remnants of the Big Bang, are
> predicted by Steven Hawking in his book " A brief History of Time", to
> be still in existence.  If indeed this is true it is argued that they
> are at the center of the earth, other planets and the Sun.  It is
> proposed that their magnetic field explains the origin of the earth's
> and other planet magnetic field and that occasional
> blackhole-blackhole collisions may cause core explosions that may
> explain the origin of the moon, the asteroid belt and other
> astronomical features - possibly the missing neutrino problem.
>  
> Authors note:  I find the 'hole' thing a bit wild, but it is a good
> exercise in developing understanding.  I have so far not been able to
> conclusively disprove these propositions and therefore offer it for
> open discussion.

Two comments.

1) I hadn't really ever thought about magnetic fields from black holes
before, but I guess the requisite physical properties (angular momentum
and charge) are external manifestations of black holes, so there seems to
be no reason not to have them. However, a black hole of a given mass will
have limited charge and angular momentum. Thus, the magnetic field of the
earth would put a lower bound on the mass of the black hole. It should be
relatively simple to determine this bound. 

2) Even more stringent lower bounds would be imposed by lack of noticable 
evaporation of the black hole. Since the rate of Hawking radiation depends on 
the surface temperature (and thus size) of the black hole, the rate of decay of 
the Earth's magnetic field might put even stronger bounds on the black hole 
mass, although it is not clear (to me at least) what happens to the angular 
momentum and charge of Kerr-Newman black holes.So this one would be a bit more 
difficult to get a grip on.

Two questions.

1) Who is responsible for this idea?

2) Is there literature on the subject?

--
########################## _`|'_ ##############################################
##  Warren G. Anderson     |o o| "... for its truth does not matter, and is  ##
##  Dept. of Physics       ( ^ )  unimaginable." -J. Ashbery, The New Spirit ##
##  University of Alberta  /\-/\      (anderson@fermi.phys.ualberta.ca)      ##
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: nextc.Princeton.EDU!mdd (Mark D. Doyle)
Subject: Re: Length scales in physics
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: mdd@nextc.princeton.edu
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 01:49:32 GMT

In article <Aug.22.21.05.34.1992.26084@ruhets.rutgers.edu>  
bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
> The earlier question of, more-or-less, "why do physicists assume that
> all constants are less than 10?" is very interesting, because most of
> the time when you calculate something the constants that emerge are
> relatively small.  Why?  I don't know, and I don't think it can be
> fully explained by psychological reasons that determine our units or
> what quantities we choose to calculate.  There's something there,
> which explains why you just know, when Jackson says 
>    show B = 96 pi NI/c (...)
> that it will be a bitch and a half, because the constant is weird.

Of course, there is always the constant 192 (pi)^3 that appears when you  
calculate the width of the muon. Dimensional analysis misses by 3 orders  
of magnitude. Useful to remember for qualifying exams. 

Mark
mdd@nextc.princeton.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: acase@reed.edu (Andrew Case)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Fun with droplets
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:00:47 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR

rhodewalt_br@swam2.enet.dec.com (Yackytonopah) writes:
[perhaps a bit too much stuff sacrificed to the gods of bandwidth 
conservation]
>
>That is _so_ cool. Does the drop flatten out (as a result of falling or 
>being near the surface of the bottom liquid)? How can a film of air
>be trapped betwee a convex surface and a flat surface? 
>
>The world awaits your answer.

       The drop causes an indentation in the surface of the bottom liquid
(usually referred to as phase 2, with phase 1 being the fluid through
which the drop falls to the surface, in the case of drops of coffee,
phase 1 is air, and phase 2 is coffee). This provides a pair of curved 
surfaces (the bottom of the drop and the indentation in the lower fluid) 
between which is a thin film of air. This film slowly flows out from under 
the droplet, until droplet and coffee are sufficiently close for the droplet 
to actually touch the lower liquid, at which point it rapidly drains into 
the bulk liquid.

                          ....
                      .          .
                    .              .
                   .      drop      .
                   .                .
                     .            .
                          ....
................                        .................
  bulk liquid     .       air        .
                        ........

Sometimes coalescence is not complete, and a secondary drop is formed.
I have observed series of up to ten daughter droplets.
The drop flattens out to a degree which depends on the size of the
drop and the mechanical properties of the fluid of which it is composed.

For a reasonably good do it yourself experiment, get a beaker (or glass),
and try water (phase 2) and lamp oil (phase 1) some of the lighter cooking
oils would probably work pretty well, too. Use a pipette to drop water
through the lamp oil. You can get multiple drops on the interface
and try to make _really_ big drops by encouraging drop to coalesce with
each other before they coalesce with the bulk phase 2 liquid. 

If you can set up standing waves on the interface (not really all that
easy), you should be able to get drops to last 3 to 5 times longer. 
Actually, just about any mechanical disturbance will make the drops last 
longer.

Anyway, I am beginning to get uncomfortable with the fact that I would
rather ramble about this than talk to the attractive person sitting
next to me. I should do something about this. I _will_ do something
about this. Bye.

Andrew
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: The dangers in microwaved food...
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:10:34 GMT

In article <10200@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Harold F Lillywhite) writes:
>In article <16u7u4INNpbi@agate.berkeley.edu> shirriff@sprite.berkeley.edu (Ken Shirriff) writes:
>
>>There are serious health risks in eating microwaved jelly donuts.
>
>Or eggs.  Unless the membrane is pierced they can build up a lot of
>internal pressure.  The same probably applies to any food with a
>reasonably impervious layer on the outside.  The quick heating of a
>microwave oven can turn it into a potential bomb which can explode 
>when some poor soul cuts it or pokes it with a fork.

    After rigorous experimentation, I have concluded that it
    is difficult to get most eggs to actually explode in the microwave.
    Most of them seem to have flaws that rupture before a good
    pressure differential can be built up.  Or I could have just
    had a bad batch of eggs...

>Maybe microwave cooking could prevent cancer by killing people
>before they develop that disease.  :-)  :-)

    Wow.  You must have a big microwave.   Mine will hardly fit two
    large packages of macaroni and cheese.

                              dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
From: cegtitd@prism.gatech.EDU (Tim Dodd)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Origin of universe as quantum fluctuation?
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:15:48 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <25463@dog.ee.lbl.gov) sichase@csa2.lbl.gov writes:
)In article <ARI.HUTTUNEN.92Aug13023839@silver-surfer.hut.fi), Ari.Huttunen@hut.fi (Ari Juhani Huttunen) writes...
))A religious person might claim that 'God' created the universe by
))creating the first big quantum fluctuation. This could have happened
))by hitting with a mighty hammer, for example. Sounds as good a solution
))as any other that I've heard. Certainly we will not be able to obtain
))any information about what happened before the 'big bang', if it
))indeed happened.
)
)I just don't see why this needs to be true.  The unfortunate truth is that
)we just don't know enough physics to say what happened early enough to answer
)the question unambigously.  It seems entirely possible that you could
)know what happened before the big bang.  The big bang need not have been
)the result of a perfect mathematical singularity - information may have
)been preserved.  
)
)Interesting physics has always popped up in the past to save us from
)singularities and other bizarre stuff.  I would say that there is a 
)cutoff time before which the universe was dominated by processes we
)know nothing about - yet.  So the question of what came before that time
)is completely open.

You seem to be conceiving of the big bang as an event which occurred
in a pre-existing space-time.  As I understand it, space-time itself, as
well as all the "stuff" which fills it, ORIGINATED in the big bang.
Therefore, asking questions about what happened before the big bang
is the same as asking what happened before time began:  it's completely
meaningless.

As always, just MHO.  :-)

Tim
-- 
"It is still an unending source of surprise for me to see how a few
scribbles on a blackboard or on a sheet of paper could change the
course of human affairs."   -- Stanislaw Ulam
Tim Dodd, Research Scientist, Georgia Tech  cegtitd@prism.gatech.edu
From: sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Annihilation?
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:35:52 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: na
Reply-To: sichase@csa2.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.197
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   

In article <12950068@hpspdla.spd.HP.COM>, ric@hpspdla.spd.HP.COM (Ric Peregrino) writes...
> 
>Scott Chase writes:
> 
>>S-states must decay into an even number of photons, P-states
>>into an odd number.
> 
>Matt McIrvin writes:
> 
>>Spin-aligned positronium can decay to final states with
>>*more* than two photons.  For instance, a three-photon final
>>state is possible.
> 
>These two statements look inconsistent. A ground state (S)
>spin aligned positronium certainly can't decay into an
>even number of photons with conservation of spin given that
>no spin 0 photons exist. I see no problem with three photons.
>Is this the source of the longer lifetime positronium?

The L=0 state of positronium has two possible spin configurations -
anti-aligned and aligned, leading to total angular momentum 0 or 1 
for the system.  (One of these is the "para" state, the other "ortho".
I should remember which is which, but I don't.  I think that parapositronium
is the 0 angular momentum state.)  The anti-aligned state is lower 
energy, and so is the official ground state.  It can decay only into 
two photons.  

So our two statements are not inconsistent - just two different 
ways of describing the same thing.  The confusion seems to have 
been in your description of a "spin-aligned ground state" which doesn't
exist.

-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: toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl (Toon Moene)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Subject?
Date: 22 Aug 92 16:56:35 GMT
Organization: Moene Computational Physics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

In article <FeosPB2w176w@west.darkside.com> safecrac@west.darkside.com  
(Chris Colvin) writes:
> Jesus Saves

Hm, I'd rather rely on backups.
--
Toon Moene (toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl)
Kantershof 269, 1104 GN  Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel.: + 31 20 6982029; Fax: + 31 20 6003411
No Disclaimers; a NeXT at home protects against this occupational hazard.
From: Nir.Oren@f54.n7101.z5.fidonet.org (Nir Oren)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: FTL
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 01:50:01 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 5:7101/54 - Depths of Insanity, Alberton

Using the uncertanty principle, is it possible to travel faster than 
the speed of light: A particles exact speed can't be mesured 
|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?
Chow
Nir
--  
INTERNET: Nir.Oren@f54.n7101.z5.fidonet.org
via:  THE CATALYST BBS in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
       (catpe.alt.za)   +27-41-34-1122 HST or +27-41-34-2859, V32bis & HST.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: frisinv@alleg.edu(Vincent Frisina)
Subject: strong force
Organization: Allegheny College
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 17:55:54 GMT

Is there a mathematical force law for the strong force? If so, what is it?
If there is no exact formula, what's the closest we have from what's  
known? Thanks.
-----
Vince