HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Number of "religious scientists"
Date: 23 Dec 1992 14:10 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1gttdfINNhk0@cat.cis.Brown.EDU>, ST202194@brownvm.brown.edu () writes...
>Hello, I was just reading sci.physics while doing research for a paper on
>cosmic strings and I came across the following statement which might be of
>interest to people posting about science and religion.. .
> 
>"It is customary nowadays to attempt to develop the theory of evolution from
>10^-43 seconds, onward, and it is the early epochs which have attracted the
>particle physicists so much.  Everything is expected to evolve as a function of
>time except the laws of physics.  These are considered immutable.  It they were
>not, then it would not be possible to carry out work in this field.  But, there
>is no evidence that they remain constant or that they have not changed with
>time.  

This is a common statement, but is all together wrong.  Creationists especially 
seem to like to make this claim.  The truth is that we have some very
good evidence that many physical laws have been invariant for billions of
years.  For example, if you study the spectrum of very distant objects,
some billions of light-years from Earth, you will see that the spectral
lines are the same as in the laboratory, demonstrating that quantum mechanics,
relativity, electromagnetism, etc., produced the same atomic structures
billions of years ago as they do now.  This is a very strong, and quantifiable 
constraint on any model in which any of the physical constants or 
equations of physics change over time.

You can probably think up some geochemical arguments along the same line,
because the timescale is the same, i.e., you can dig up very old rocks.

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas
Xref: sparky sci.physics:21844 alt.sci.physics.new-theories:2641
From: wengland@stephsf.com (Bill England)
Subject: Re: Accellerating Spaceship (yet another bird in a plane)
    <Bz1Bxp.5vH@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1992Dec12.020519.4599@newstand.syr.edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 17:20:12 GMT
Organization: Stephen Software Systems Inc., Tacoma/Seattle, +1 800 829 1684
X-Bytes: 1363

In article <1992Dec12.020519.4599@newstand.syr.edu> pksuk@mothra.syr.EDU (Peter K. Suk) writes:
>[...]
>only thing special about it is that it anhiliates with the
>corresponding matter.  In this regard, it's really no stranger than matter
>-- just a lot rarer in our neck of the woods.  ANTIMATTER DOES NOT
>INTRINSICALLY GO FASTER THAN LIGHT.  It's not weird or funky.  It's just 
>the complement of matter.  There -- I just had to say that,
>just in case other folks didn't know better.



  Actually Dirac said that mathmaticly Anti-matter looks exactly
  like regular matter but going backwards in time.  Unfortunatly this
  would also imply that it IS moving faster than light as well.

  Antimatter is about as weird and funky as you can get. AM has 
  been predicted to have negative mass (impies negative inertia and
  repulsion from normal gravity wells).  

  For a current look at AM research check out Decembers Sci-Am.  
  Some physicists have captured and cooled off anti-protons and 
  hope to manufacture some anti-Hydrogen soon.
-- 
 +-  Bill England,  wengland@stephsf.COM -----------------------------------+
 |   * *      H -> He +24MeV                                                |
 |  * * * ... Oooo, we're having so much fun making itty bitty suns *       |
 |__ * * ___________________________________________________________________|
From: bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Link invariants and gauge theory
Date: 22 Dec 92 23:34:30 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

marty@amaterasu.physics.uiuc.edu (Marty Gelfand) writes:
[defending conformal field theory as useful in condensed matter]

>  Conformal field
>theory provides a classification scheme for 2D critical points
>(due to Belavin, Polyakov, and Z.m.l.chikov):  ...

Zamolodchikov (there are two, Alexander and Alyosha; both are here
(Rutgers) right now.)  Zamolodchikov(s) is (are) usually thought of as 
string theorist(s) but this stuff is having an impact on condensed matter -
I tease the theory grad students that all the talks they give are 
about conformal field theory, whether in particle physics OR condensed
matter.  I don't understand it, though, so I can't give references -
sorry!
From: andrew@rentec.com (Andrew Mullhaupt)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Number of "religious scientists"
Date: 22 Dec 92 02:57:08 GMT
Organization: Renaissance Technologies Corp., Setauket, NY.

In article <1gttdfINNhk0@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> ST202194@brownvm.brown.edu writes:

> What
>physicists are really saying, I believe, is that the laws of physics equate to
>God."  - G. Burbridge, in paper called Modern Cosmology: the Harmonious and the
>Discordant Facts.

Isn't this one of those equations that happens when you forget to take
expectation on one side or the other?

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
From: bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: who said this?
Date: 22 Dec 92 03:59:20 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

Do any of you remember who (I think it was a physicist) said:

"The problem with this instrument is that it always gives an
answer."

A reference or source, or the no-doubt surrounding anecdote,
would be doubly nice!  Thank you.
Xref: sparky sci.physics:22046 sci.math:17608
From: wsadjw@rw7.urc.tue.nl (Jan Willem Nienhuys)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math
Subject: Re: Why no Nobel Prize in Math?
Date: 3 Jan 93 10:53:17 GMT
Reply-To: wsadjw@urc.tue.nl
Followup-To: sci.physics
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

In article <C08DF6.98B@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca> deghare@daisy.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Hare) writes:

[most of excellent post on Nobel myths deleted]

>The facts are these:
>1. Nobel never married, hence no ``wife". (He did have a mistress,
>a Viennese woman named Sophie Hess.)
>2. Gosta Mittag-Leffler was an important mathematician in Sweden
>in the late 19th-early 20th century.  He was the founder of the
>journal Acta Mathematica, played an important role in helping the
>career of Sonya Kovalevskaya, and was eventually head of the
>Stockholm Hogskola, a technical institute. However, it seems

There is even one version of the stories about Nobel that Sonya
was the reason.  It seems that Sonya Kovalevskaya (who was a witty
conversation maker) once met Nobel on an official celebration; she
later wrote something to a friend about those stuffy old people  ...
enough to let other people much later speculate all kinds of nonsense
about Nobel and Mittag-Leffler being rivals for K.'s favor, and she
dumping the one for the other and so on.  If anyone is interested,
I'll dig up references, but the story is rubbish of course.

J.W. Nienhuys
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: vejcik@daq (Steve Vejcik)
Subject: Re: Reluctant call for moderation of sci.physics
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 11:26:37 EST
Organization: Physics Dept., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

I agree.  I understand people's sentiment that the crackpots can get out
of hand and tend to dominate the discussions to the point of getting
very tedious, but hey, it _is_ very easy to just type 'n'.  This group
gets some fun threads going but that's it.  I don't think its reasonable
to expect anything that will affect research to take place here.  

                         Steve
  

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject: Re: Why is the sky blue? in bed
Organization: Two rooms filled with typography, in downtown Boston
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 03:30:29 GMT

[sci.physics]
In article <11571@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
>And some people would be happy with the answer the Kibo created the 
>universe, complete with your question and various answers, just a 
>few nanoseconds ago, because...

...because if you're not happy with it I'll destroy the Universe in a
few more nanoseconds.
					-- K.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: nariani@utdallas.edu (Sushil Nariani)
Subject: range of EM force
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 05:34:55 GMT

	This must be very stupid. If the EM force is via virtual photons,
	how does it have an infinite range, given that a virtual photon
	of frequency 'v' has a non-zero "borrowed" energy 'hv' ? 
	Leggett, in his book, "Problems of Physics", says this is because the
	photon has zero rest mass and hence a zero "borrowed" energy. I 
	find this fishy.

	Sushil

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain)
Subject: Re: Richard P. Feynman
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 06:57:56 GMT

Oh, I forgot in my last hero worshiping post to the physics community
to say that I am an engineer.  And thanks.

Bob
-- 
Bob Cain    rcain@netcom.com   408-358-2007

    'The meek shall inherit the earth--the rest of us will move on..'
                                                    Sameer Parekh


               PGP 1.0 or 2.0 public key available on request.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: marty@amaterasu.physics.uiuc.edu (Marty Gelfand)
Subject: Re: Link invariants and gauge theory
Organization: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 16:25:33 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.063339.27448@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Brett McInnes) writes:
>baez@guitar.ucr.edu (john baez) writes:
>[interesting stuff deleted]:                                              
>:    
>Can anyone								  
> [a] give me an example of a theory that is *not* diffeomorphism invariant
> [b] explain to me whether "real" physicists "really" care about
>Chern-Simonsology [meaning: do they actually have a concrete use for it,
>or is it something that people do while waiting for the next theory of
>everything to come along?]					          
   At least a few physicists studying the fractional quantum Hall effect 
believe Chern-Simons field theories are relevant to the real world.
E.g., A. Lopez and E. Fradkin, Phys Rev B 44, 5246 (1991) [chosen because
it's a local product].  Actually there are several flavors of Chern-Simons
theories for the FQHE floating around, all of which (one hopes) would
yield the same results could they be treated exactly.
> ps I have no objection either to mathematical physics with no obvious
>applications, or to things like conformal field theory that are
>interesting but of no real use. Nor am I of the school who say say "so
>what" when informed of the relationship between knot theory and QFT. I ask
>merely for information.
   Hey, who says conformal field theory is of no real use???  Down here
in low-energy physics it has been fruitful in problems such as
quantum spin chains, multichannel Kondo systems, and 2D finite-temperature
critical phenomena (including random systems).

Happy Holidays,
Marty Gelfand  marty@amaterasu.physics.uiuc.edu
From: palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: bubble in container
Date: 25 Dec 92 01:31:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: sfu.1992Dec25.013159.23581
Organization: Simon Fraser University
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A75FA4CF96021C23@rs17-annex3.sfu.ca>
X-Xxdate: Thu, 24 Dec 92 01:33:03 GMT
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d16

In article <Bzs9I4.IqG@utdallas.edu> Sushil Nariani, nariani@utdallas.edu 
asks:

>There's this inexpandible container which is completely full of water but
>for a small bubble at the bottom. If the bubble rises to the top, does
the
>pressure on the sides of the container change?

The answer to your question is "Yes". The pressure increases everywhere
in 
the container by an amount

            delta P = rho g h,
where 
                rho = density of water
                  g = acceleration of gravity
                  h = the vertical distance the bubble rises

To be perfectly clear, we should note that the water is considered to be 
incompressible and the gas in the bubble is insoluble in the water.

A variant on this rather counterintuitive result is to confine the bubble
to 
an inverted test tube attached to an armature of iron which can be moved 
vertically from outside the container by using a magnet. This will give
one 
a barostatic control handle!

When I first discovered this result I (and some of my colleagues) found
it 
absolutely fascinating. Some found it unbelievable. It is now a
commonplace 
at SFU, and they are tired of hearing about it. Each new batch of
students 
to whom I show it is quite satisfyingly impressed. I've often wondered
why 
it does not appear in many textbooks.

Leigh
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: What are the conditions for Mass <-> Energy conversion
Date: 27 Dec 92 18:48:34 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: bhides@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Sandhiprakas J Bhide)

In article <8091@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM>, bhides@tekig1 (Sandhiprakas J Bhide) writes:
>Now, if it is indeed true, why is that sunrays or for that matter
>any other energy such as heat does not by itself convert into mass?

Because there is no conversion.  A hot iron weighs more than a cold
iron, other things being equal.  There is both more energy, and more
mass.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Pondering..
From: sralsto@eis.calstate.edu (Scott)
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 08:52:17 GMT
Organization: Calif State Univ/Electronic Information Services

I'm a highschool senior, currently enrolled in physics.  It's a great
class and I'm discovering that the world of physics is very diverse, and
sometimes seemingly illogical.  It will take some getting used to.

Anyway, about this time of year we are challenged with engineering a
physics project.  I've been thinking and reading up on some things that
interested me (mainly the diffraction and interference of light, mulling
over trying to play with Pohl's experiment or Young's.)  Light seems like
it would be a mildly entertaining subject for a project, focusing in on
some property or aspect of it.  My questions are:  Am I getting in over my
head?  Is this a worthy thought for a project?  Is there a chance that I
can successfully execute these experiments?  Is there something that I
might find more interesting?  Researching a project such as this for a
student as unknowing as I is like taking a stab in the dark...

Suggestions?  Comments?  Flames?  Advice? -->  I'd be exuberant to receive
any of these. :)

Thanks.,.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Scott Ralston <-> sralsto@eis.calstate.edu
"Everyone has written poems in adolescence; true poets destroy them, bad
poets publish them.  Belbo, too cynical to save them, too weak to chuck
them out, stuck them in Uncle Carlo's cupboard."
        --Umberto Eco, _Foulcault's_Pendulum_

Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.new-theories
From: boswell@well.sf.ca.us (Gerard Van der Leun)
Subject: Re: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Followup-To: sci.physics
Organization: edge.com
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 21:36:11 GMT

In article <C01D72.1yx@well.sf.ca.us>, sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack
Sarfatti) wrote:

>      I guess you must have missed Sarfatti's 500-part series on
>      Gleick's new book on Feynman, including excerpts from probably nearly
>      every page.  Give him half a chance and I'm sure he would be
>      more than willing to flood your mailbox with postings on his
>      'work'.
> 
>      Now where did I put that electronic copy of Heaviside's papers?
>      Part 5006: Heaviside does London ...
> 
>                              dale bass          "
> This is simply ugly - and is the sort of thing that I hope would not be
> permitted in a moderated conference. Bass is green with envy.

Jack, if you were the moderator of a moderated group it would have only
one writer and only one reader and only one member.
From: sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Just the FAQ's please!!
Date: 23 Dec 92 21:53:00 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Dec17.162815.808@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>, y41@aix320c.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (Jeffrey Hazelwood) writes...
> 
>Gibt es hier ein FAQ oder was?  

I could probably answer this question if I had the slightest knowledge
of German. 

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas
From: sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: The fundamental questions?
Date: 23 Dec 1992 11:34 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <mcirvin.724111450@husc8>, mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Matt McIrvin) writes...
> 
>Yes.  You might want to read the article in the December (I think)
>Scientific American by my old quantum prof Gerry Gabrielse, in which
>he describes means by which antiprotons can be manipulated with
>some finesse.  Particle physicists encounter antimatter all the time,
>in the form of individual antiparticles.  But nobody's built a whole
>atom of the stuff yet.

Great article.  My only peeve is that the Bevatron has never been an
antiproton storage ring, in spite of what Gabrielse claims.  

As far as antimatter goes, though we have not made antiatoms, we have
made some antinuclei: antiprotons, anti-deuterons and anti-tritons and 
anti-helium-3.

Usually, the reaction is the result of final-state coalescence in a
p-A or A-A reaction with sufficient energy to produce lots of antiprotons
and antineutrons in the final state.  Antideuteron yield is typically 
about 3.5 orders of magnitude less than antiproton yeild, and antitriton
yield is down by another 3 to 4 orders of magnitude.  Because of these
diminising returns, no one has yet made antihelium-4, with two antiprotons
and two antineutrons.  To do so, you would expect to need to make roughly 
10^12 antinucleons per antihelium nucleus you make.  This is a tall order
given typical antinucleon production cross-sections and beam luminosities.

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas
From: franl@centerline.com (Fran Litterio)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Aspect's experiment
Date: 30 Dec 92 17:14:03
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
	<1992Dec29.221801.4003@cs.wayne.edu> <459@mtnmath.UUCP>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.3.116
In-reply-to: paul@mtnmath.UUCP's message of 30 Dec 92 16:53:16 GMT

paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) writes:

> However the experiment is still conceptually simple. You change the
> relative angle between polarizers and observe the times of detections
> at both locations. You will see a clear shift from many joint detections
> to few joint detections or the reverse depending on what direction
> you are changing the angles. QM predicts that this change will be fast
> enough that no local process could generate such a result. The time
> will be less that it takes light to travel from either detector to the
> *more distant* polarizer.  To prove this is truly the case you need an
> experiment where you directly measure the time when you change
> polarizer angles and compare this time to a statistical estimate of
> the time when the probability for joint detections changed. This estimate
> must be based on direct observations of detections.

Won't this experiment only allow conclusions of the form "There is a
33% probability that a non-local process is at work"?

After all, you might see the first third of the shift from few-to-many
joint detections happen in less time than it takes light to travel to
each detector from the more distant polarizer.  The remainder of the
shift happens "too late" to be evidence of a non-local process.
--
--
franl@centerline.com         "So what we've decided to do is set you up in
uunet!centerline!franl        Cicely, situated in an area that we Alaskans
617-498-3255 (USA)            refer to as The Alaskan Riviera."
PGP 2.0 public key available.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: scip1061@nuscc.nus.sg (Marc Paul Jozef)
Subject: Re: moderating sci.physics
Organization: National University of Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 05:30:44 GMT

sidles@stein.u.washington.edu (John Sidles) writes:
: Why impose extra constraints by moderating sci.physics?  Is
: the extra bandwidth imposed by eccentric postings really a
: significant burden?
: 
: In my view, all persons of libertarian inclination should vote "no".
: The present mild anarchy is quite tolerable, even enjoyable.
: 
: Not that sci.physics is perfect... it just isn't clear that
: moderation will improve it.  The main problem seems to be a
: paucity of well thought out, interesting & informative postings,
: not an excess of eccentric ones.
: 
: Also, consider the humanitarian aspects... why exclude people
: with ideas that seem strange, at what may be a considerable emotional
: cost to them, in the absence of a compelling reason to do so?
: 


     Indeed, we are dealing here with people who 
     do not know how to operate the kill-options. 


     
Xref: sparky sci.physics:21994 sci.math:17575