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Link to thread of next article. How certain is the Uncertainty Principle? Date: 1996/11/15
Has the following experiment been performed ?
I think i have read somewhere that experiments can now be performed such that the uncertainty of conjugate pairs of variables approach the limits set by the Uncertainty Principle?
Say one can do such an experiment where the measured uncertainty in pairs of conjugate variables is extremely close to the theoretical limit set by the Uncertainty Principle, if there was some small uncertainty in the Uncertainty Principle might one have a small chance of measuring a violation of the Uncertainty Principle?
I'm uncertain, %^(... Thanks for any thoughts?
Link to thread of next article. Looking for a compilation of various metrics. Date: 1996/11/17
Does anyone know of any large compilation of metrics. We have handbooks for many things, handbook of surfaces, handbook of topology, are there any handbooks that just list many examples of metrics.
Using masses to determine the speed of light? Date: 1996/12/04
The speed of light can be determined by experiments which measure the force between known charges and the force between known currents. Can similar experiments be done with masses and thus determine the speed of light? I'm thinking the two experiments would be similar, measure the force between known masses and measure the Lense-Thirring effect for a rotating mass? This would give two "constants", one is the Gravitational constant which has units:
The speed of light squared, c^2 = epsilon^-1 mu^-1
or? c^2 = G E where E is a constant that will be determined by measuring the Lense-Thirring effect, and must have units:
and should have a value of 1.35E24?
Re: using masses to determine the speed of light? Date: 1996/12/05
In article <584rek$12ss@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> ale2@psu.edu (ale2) writes:
> or? c^2 = G E where E is a constant that will be determined by > measuring the Lense-Thirring effect, and must have units: > > |E| = g cm^-1 > > and should have a value of 1.35E24?
I used 3E8 cm/sec for the speed of light, wrong!, it is 3E10 cm/sec so the above number should be 1.35E28. I should have stayed with MKS units, sorry about that %^(
* Note, the above is still off by a factor of 10 or so but the main point is correct? *8^(
Re: Einstein's Constant. Date: 1996/12/20
In article <59amtm$cau@asgard.actrix.gen.nz> cliff_p@actrix.gen.nz (Cliff Pratt) writes:
> Einstein's theory >describes< reality. Scientists >measure<. The fact that > they cannot measure the value of c is irrelevant. The theory >assumes< that > the speed of light is constant. The theory does not assign any value to that > constant. The constant does not change, but our measurements of it do. > I think you are wrong here? Measure the force between known masses which don't move. This gives you one constant in terms of the masses and the distance between them. Now measure the rate at which spinning masses of known angular momentum and known separation change their angular momentum w.r.t. time. The equation which gives this effect has two constants in it, the Gravitational constant G divided by the speed of light squared?? The speed of light can be an experimentally determined constant by doing two experiments with masses!
See: Am. J. Phys.,Vol.59, No. 5, May 1991, pages 421-425 for equation in question.
Link to thread of next article. Could the charge on a down quark be defined to be -1 ? Date: 1997/01/04
Quarks and anti-quarks have charges -2/3, -1/3, 1/3, and 2/3. Electrons and positrons have charges -1 and 1.
Would we look at things differently if we defined the smallest unit of charge to be that on a down quark and call that -1 units of charge?
"Draw" an electron, you may win fabulous prizes. Date: 1997/01/17
I am offering a staggering $7 (US) prize money for the best "drawing" of an electron (what is best will be explained below). This contest is open to all; crackpots, amateurs, professionals (professors seeking tenure should use a pseudonym), AP, and AA, anyone, from anywhere!
How i will judge the winning entry.
The winning entry will paint or draw for us a picture of an electron such that this picture "implies" what we know about the electron (see below). Possibly this picture will also imply something that is not understood about the electron, for example its quantum nature.
We set our goals high but we will be satisfied if the best entry does at best a bad job of the above. What I'm saying is this is not an easy task! But you have to give us something better than "the electron is a point". Just does not do it for me!
Some of what we know of the electron.
All electrons seem to come with the same mass, the same charge (electric and weak charge), and the same angular momentum, this would be nice to explain.
Electrons are best described by the theory Quantum Electrodynamics which is a marriage of Quantum Theory and the Special Theory of Relativity.
Electrons are Fermi particles and as such no two electrons can be in the same state.
In an inhomogeneous magnetic field a beam of hydrogen atoms will be split into two beams and only two beams.
And on and on. You something about the electron, paint a picture!
If a lot of this doesn't make sense I'm sorry, I'm tired %^)
Re: "Draw" an electron, you may win fabulous prizes. Date: 1997/01/20
In article <5boan1$81q@r02n01.cac.psu.edu> ale2@psu.edu (ale2) writes:
> I am offering a staggering $7 (US) prize money for the best "drawing" > of an electron (what is best will be explained below). This contest is > open to all; crackpots, amateurs, professionals (professors seeking > tenure should use a pseudonym), AP, and AA, anyone, from anywhere! > > The Rules ...
It may not be clear from my post but the "picture" you "draw" is to be a written essay and not computer scans of a picture, thanks.
Remember a thousand words is equal to one picture, less words if you are clever.
Winners of "Draw the electron" contest announced. Date: 1997/02/01
How i will judge the winning entry.
The winning entry will paint or draw for us a picture of an electron such that this picture "implies" what we know about the electron (see below). Possibly this picture will also imply something that is not understood about the electron, for example its quantum nature.
We set our goals high but we will be satisfied if the best entry does at best a bad job of the above. What I'm saying is this is not an easy task! But you have to give us something better than "the electron is a point". Just does not do it for me!
The Winners
1st prize
From: aglisi@heaviside.ucsd.edu
I'm in...
For my entry I propose "electron as soliton":
1. Lisi, A.G. A solitary wave solution of the Maxwell-Dirac equations. Journal of Physics A (Mathematical and General), 21 Sept. 1995, vol.28, (no.18):5385-92.
You even get a picture of an electron cross section!
This paper is also available at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/9410244
I didn't want to get labeled a crackpot (even if it is so) as I am but a lowly graduate student. (hence the $5 means something to me. :-) ) But you've hit the right buttons to get me to babble on about my crackpot ideas so I'll spill.
QFT with point particles is clearly "right" in the sense that it gives the right answers to scattering problems, etc., however, it is far from satisfying. I think the most elegant theory of the electron we could get, and my contest entry, is the following:
Start with classical General Relativity (minimize the curvature) and compactify some dimensions (Kaluza-Klein theory) to get GR coupled to your Dirac and gauge fields. Break some symmetries to get a mass (~Plank mass) for your Dirac and some gauge fields. The Maxwell-Dirac equations admit non-topological soliton solutions (see paper) that are fermions (looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, ...) with spin, charge, magnetic moment, etc. You'll get different solitons (leptons, quarks) for the various gauge interactions. Then you have to quantize the field theory using path integrals over the field space and the classical action (curvature). (I can't dispute QM, even if I wish it didn't work that way.) In doing these path integrals you can expand around the classical soliton solutions rather then the vacuum. This way you get excited quantum states for your solitons which correspond to the different families (electron, muon, tau) with the mass hierarchy. In your path integrals you'll also see that the Poincare invariance of your soliton solutions makes them look like moving point particles at large distance scales. This way you get to connect to standard QFT and the standard model as well as get all the standard results of quantum electron behavior.
This whole ball of wax holds together pretty well. I have, of course, excluded all the details, which includes stuff I haven't been able to do, such as actually calculate the darn mass hierarchy. (You would have heard about that!) But I believe this exposition, as well as the cool electron pin-up picture in my paper, will be enough to net me that $5. :-)
Unless of course you're merely looking for "most bizarre", in which case I will loose out to the likes of Plutonium and his ilk. (Is there a crackpot compendium available somewhere, or is this it?) If curious personality traits do turn out to be a factor, perhaps you could consider that I spend most of my time surfing (on the ocean), but don't tell my advisor!
Garrett Lisi 336 Bonair St. La Jolla, CA 92037 (619)456-0857
2nd prize
From: lots@ix.netcom.com(Joel Mannion)
I would like to submit an entry (!) for the "Draw an electron competition", on the basis that "a thousand words are worth one picture". OK, OK, only 555 words.
Consider an EM wave in a near circular orbit. Picture a toroid with the magnetic vector of the EM wave wrapped around the surface at every small diameter of the toroid. The E field of the wave projects normal to the toroid surface everywhere. This produces an object that from a distance looks like a point charge with an associated magnetic dipole. The inside of the toroid is of opposite charge to that seen externally. Now consider that spatial localization of energy must change the metric index and thereby the local velocity of light. So the EM wave is propagating in an elliptical precessing orbit where by definition it's velocity is that of light within the immediate locality, but appears different from outside i.e. to an observer the system is relativistic and shows mass. The orbital precession is required as the angular momentum must be quantized and the total effective velocity must therefore be c, but we cannot have a singularity. On spatial localization the EM system undergoes a relativistic contraction by alpha, the fine structure constant (i.e. to 1/137 of it's size), the relativistic mass energy increases to 137 times that of the free space EM energy (wavelength contraction). So a free space energy mc^2 forms a relativistic system of mc^2. /alpha = Mc^2. This kinetic mass energy increase is compensated for by an increase in the local potential energy to hc/2.pi.R, where Mc^2 = hc/2.pi.R As the system is relativistic by alpha, the observer sees reduced values of the mass and potential, i.e. m and alpha hc/2.pi.R = e^2. /R, where R = alpha r = re , the classical electron radius. The observer thus sees a unit point charge and the electron mass. The relativistic nature of the system causes the magnetic dipole to appear to be spinning at a velocity near but not equal to c. The index change can be an increase or a decrease, causing forward or backward precession. The toroid has a mirror state where it is turned inside out, thereby changing the sign of the point charge. [Sorry - was the positron included in the contest?]. Orbiting a photon requires additional angular momentum so pair production from free space photons only occurs by capture of same, i.e. from quantum fluctuations in vicinity of nucleus. Obvious models for pair production and annihilation follow.
A small complication: the periphery of the toroid is half of a wavelength of the energy. This way the direction of the E vector in the EM sinusoid reverses just as one cycle is complete, so that the same E vector always points outward.
One part of the picture is missing, - Does this invalidate the entry- why does the electron appear to be a point entity, or is it just small? How small? How is it measured? Is inelastic scattering or fully elastic scattering assumed?
Win or lose, I would like to be compensated by having a spinning donut of finite size, not too small, Faxed to me at (408) 747-0245. Black or Red is OK. Thanx. Bill Oakley. 23 Jan '97
You are what you eat, but don't get charged up about it.
3rd prize
From: "Norm Silliman" <silliman@ccnet.com> To: <ale2@psu.edu>
The puzzle of like charged-ions repelling may be answered by defining the proton as a generator of a vortex of aether, the size of the proton, coming off both sides of the spinning orb. This vortex will push any other object the size of a proton, interpreted as repelling, but not the electron (which is much smaller), interpreted as attraction. We need the blow from both sides as proton is not know for independent motion.
The Electron also generates a vortex of aether, the size of the electron, but coming off of one side only. This one-sided flow causes the electron to move sideways. The rain of aether being absorbed into the proton causes the Electron's path to bend toward the proton and the electron usually orbits the proton.
So Electrons repel (push) other electrons, and Protons push (repel) other Protons, but the out flowing vortexes are a size miss-match, so opposite charged ions appear to attract.
We don't know if the neutron is also repelled by the vortex of the proton as stand-alone neutrons have a very short life and we cannot test for this condition. Since the size of the neutron is nearly the size of the proton, there should be repulsion.
Norman Silliman, January 1997
Honorable Mention
From: "Michael J. Strickland" <michael658@worldnet.att.net>
Here's my entry below:
That's right - nothing! Since according to current theory, the electron is a point particle with no radius or volume, I believe the above depiction is most accurate.
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