Ask any question you want about Physics

originally posted by: KrzYma
a reply to: dragonridr
could you please provide any experiment on muon-> electron + 2neutrino decay other than calculations coming from the theory ??

How exactly do you detect neutrinos after muon decay, who did it and when ??

Look up the KARMEN experiment performed at the Rutherford lab.

a reply to: KrzYma

I have watched all those, and even though I dont know the math, many of the free Leonard Susskind lectures from Stanford about all areas of physics from Quantum to Cosmology. I understand the thinking of most, I am only trying to think further, as certain, not only is some of the thinking of most, incorrect, but beyond that, incomplete. I get my mode of thinking from the obvious basic method of a good chess player, to, before every move, comprehend each possible move of every piece on the board, great chess players, each move, will do this computation, to several orders of magnitude, I.e. compute all possible orientations of moves, of every piece, for several moves to come. I utilize this method to question, each possible meaning of every term, I am encountered with in physics talk. I question every concept from every angle, question and ask every possible meaning. And always compare to my knowledge of the classical board and game of reality thus far, my total knowledge, and my intuitive spiritual, intellectual connection to supreme possible truth, grounded in logic, reason, rational, and obviousness, that a real reality must be these ways. Thus it is seen, I am not talking about what we can know, or how we know, but how what we think we know, can be proven wrong when compared to how a real reality must be. What gives me he authority to say how a real reality must be? Logic and obviousness. A real reality cannot exhibit non locality, there is no theorized mechanism as to how a real physical system would exist, and exhibit non local behavior, this means either the knowledge of man, that says there are non local elements of reality, is 1) wrong, 2) not talking about reality, but only about his methods of organizing information after tampering with reality, and/or 3) this reality is not real. This is why others may know, but I may be smarter, because I am the most serious about truth, I have no bias or ego, I have no stake or pay, or affiliation, I have no care about man or his creations, I only care about beholding the highest truth of truth, because how many times can you witness a magic trick, before you absolutely must know, how its done.

a reply to: EasyPleaseMe

Yes, thanks...

actually I was more interested in something more conclusive than

The KARMEN experiment has observed no signal above the expected background providing no evidence for $overline[nu]_[mu] - overline[nu]_[e]$ oscillations.

a reply to: ImaFungi

I understand !
That's better way than saying something is minus 3 meters away ( what is not a problem for mathematics at all )
Unfortunately there is no theory at the moment that explains all truth.

originally posted by: KrzYma
a reply to: EasyPleaseMe

Yes, thanks...

actually I was more interested in something more conclusive than

The KARMEN experiment has observed no signal above the expected background providing no evidence for $overline[nu]_[mu] - overline[nu]_[e]$ oscillations.

I guess you were

I didn't have time to research but I though Karmen had been used to record neutrinos from muon decay.

Anyway, what you got seems to be stating 'no evidence for muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations'

I don't know who first detected neutrinos from muon decay to be honest but we can produce them from muons as the LHC does.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
a reply to: KrzYma

I have watched all those, and even though I dont know the math...
I may be smarter, because I am the most serious about truth, I have no bias or ego

I don't really see a question about physics in there. However I challenge your claim of no ego when you're essentially saying "I haven't even studied this stuff but I apply logic so I may be smarter than the thousands of the world's smartest scientists who have studied this stuff". That takes a tremendous ego.

In the Feynman video lectures for example, he only presents the "tip of the iceberg" of experimental results confirming what he said. There was much more supporting evidence he didn't even mention at that time and there's even more since, so you really aren't getting the full picture by watching those videos.

As Eros said:

originally posted by: ErosA433
What we have is an absolute mountain of data to support the theories... explaining it away or saying it is irrelevant is to say a cat is a dog in exactly my poor analogy above

I suggest you need to do more than watch the videos before you dismiss things which have mountains of data supporting them, since by your own admission, you're probably not aware of all the supporting data. You could start with, do I need to say it? The free introductory physics text Caltech put online? But you need to go much deeper.

By the way you're not the first person in history who was troubled by some aspects of quantum mechanics regarding how it does or doesn't fit with man's logic. Einstein is famous for his "spooky action at a distance" comment, and I think you know Schrodinger was troubled by the very science he helped invent, using his "cat" thought experiment to show the "illogic" of QM and how the cat can't be both dead and alive at the same time. In both cases I think they were looking for more "logic", and maybe someday we will find that but what we have today are thousands of experiments that seem to suggest nature doesn't seem to behave according to what humans think should be logical, and your non-locality example is a good one. I think there's a deeper truth here, which we haven't yet found, but if and when we find it, I don't presume that any of your suppositions are necessarily true, namely

the knowledge of man, that says there are non local elements of reality, is 1) wrong, 2) not talking about reality, but only about his methods of organizing information after tampering with reality, and/or 3) this reality is not real.

I know you're not fond of the many worlds interpretation in the OP video (neither am I for that matter) but if you insist things must have a local explanation, that interpretation does explain events in local terms:

Quantum entanglement

Bell's theorem and related results rule out a local realistic explanation for quantum mechanics (one which obeys the principle of locality while also ascribing definite values to quantum observables). However, in other interpretations, the experiments that demonstrate the apparent non-locality can also be described in local terms: If each distant observer regards the other as a quantum system, communication between the two must then be treated as a measurement process, and this communication is strictly local. In particular, in the many worlds interpretation, the underlying description is fully local. More generally, the question of locality in quantum physics is extraordinarily subtle and sometimes hinges on precisely how it is defined.

Moreover, you can't really say everybody else is "wrong" about the QM interpretation if there's not even a consensus about that, which was the point of the OP video. Determining the correct interpretation is an open question.

Hi. A question about quarks. Are the color, spin and flavor real things?? I mean how would one actually see these things to be different on two different quarks if one was the height of a plank unit?
Also about entangled particles... They say that one change on one particle is measured on the other particle a great distance away. Is this measuring a one off measuring? Cause it is implied that once you measure something so small as a particle you affect it, so given 2 entangled particles, once you've poked one and seen the other self poke cause entanglement, does that mean the entanglement is broken?? Or is there a way to constantly measure, look at, 2 entangled particles without de entangling them?? Is there any such thing as 3 entangled particles ???

a reply to: Arbitrageur

There is a difference between reading symbols and memorizing what you have read, and being smart. You dont see a question in the 1/~80 replies I have issued, the only one that happens to not be chock full of questions, congratulations, I am such a travesty. Many worlds may offer a local explanation, notice you use the term explanation, QM does not offer a non local explanation, merely an interpretation, an assertion, a leap of faith, that reality has properties of non locality, but many worlds at the same time breaks other physical rules, like the fact that you cant just double the total energy of the universe every planck second.

Here is a question. When a single photon is created from a single electron, does the photon propagate as a circle which increases area/circumference in relative reference to the electron which would relatively be at the common center at least at the point in space and time of photon creation?

I do have no ego, I am either pure and absolute truth, or not, when I am not, which is rare, I immediately eliminate what ever was not, restoring me to being complete and pure truth on a progression, or stagnation to expanding my reach.

What causes the quantum phenomenon in the first place?

A fifth fundamental force?

originally posted by: Choice777
Hi. A question about quarks. Are the color, spin and flavor real things?? I mean how would one actually see these things to be different on two different quarks if one was the height of a plank unit?

There's that word "real". I'm not sure how you define that, but the experimental results are real enough. The quarks and their properties are inferred from those, and this should at least partially answer your question:

What are quarks, and why do they have colors and flavors?

This video has a visualization of quarks but it doesn't get into their colors and flavors so you have to get that from the above link:

Also about entangled particles... They say that one change on one particle is measured on the other particle a great distance away. Is this measuring a one off measuring? Cause it is implied that once you measure something so small as a particle you affect it, so given 2 entangled particles, once you've poked one and seen the other self poke cause entanglement, does that mean the entanglement is broken?? Or is there a way to constantly measure, look at, 2 entangled particles without de entangling them?? Is there any such thing as 3 entangled particles ???

Once you measure one of the entangled particles, yes you've affected that particle and also the entangled particles, so the other(s) assume the expected entangled state whether you measure them or not...measuring the other ones is optional but of course it's always done in experiments to show the entanglement.

Yes you can have 3 entangled particles:

GHZ experiment

An example of a GHZ state is three photons in an entangled state, with the photons being in a superposition of being all horizontally polarized (HHH) or all vertically polarized (VVV), with respect to some coordinate system. Prior to any measurements being made, the polarizations of the photons are indeterminate; If a measurement is made on one of the photons using a two-channel polarizer aligned with the axes of the coordinate system, the photon assumes either horizontal or vertical polarization, with 50% probability for each orientation, and the other two photons immediately assume the identical polarization.

Hey Arb, another trick ques.
If a light source is moving away from a stationary observer, at the speed of light, what kind of em wave will reach the observer? Will it be red shifted: cosmic/x ray/visible/microwave and or a combination thereof?

By real for the quarks spin i meant is it a real physical spin ? And who decides what spin is up, left,right, etc..it's not like there's a universal up-down plane that quarks conform to..

Any good info on quantum foam ?

And a bit of a weird question....does the text bellow resemble anything of proper scientific quality or is it just fake kooky stuff put together to impress a non scientific audience ?
I mean does it actually have proper science behind it or just wishful thinking ?

'' This apparatus is composed of a high-T
superconductor electrode from which a brief, high
voltage electrical discharge is sent to a second
electrode. This electrical discharge from the
superconducting electrode is accompanied by the
emission of a beam of anomalous forces that propagate
in the same direction as the electrical discharge.

The anomalous beam generated by this apparatus has a
diameter approximately the same as the
superconducting emitter. The beam exhibits no
detectible spread for distances of at least 1.2 km using
measuring devices accurate to +/- 2 mm.
Measurements beyond 1.2 km have not been made.

X utilized target masses suspended in a
pendulum arrangement within evacuated glass cylinders
to measure the strength of the anomalous beam. The
force exerted on the target masses increases with
increasing discharge voltage. For any given voltage,
the force on the targets is proportional to the mass of
the target. Target composition and cross sectional area
had no detectible effect on the force imparted by the
beam. The beam propagates through different types of
intervening material, including structural walls and
electromagnetic shielding, without any noticeable
attenuation in the force it exerts on the targets. The
target masses used in the detector pendulums ranged
from 10 to 50 grams. Target materials included metal,
glass, wood,and rubber. Pendulum lengths of both 0.8
and 0.5 meters were used in the tests. At the maximum
voltage reported, pendulum displacements of 5.6 inches
(0.14 m) horizontally and 0.5 inches(.01 m) vertically
where consistently measured for the target masses,
representing on the order of 10-3 Joules of potential
energy. Approximately 10 5 Joules of electricity are
consumed in one test run at this setting. Assuming the
beam duration is approximately the same as that of the
electrical discharge at the superconductor,such
deflections would indicate a target acceleration of
approximately 1000 gees (9810 m/s2) for approximately 10-4
seconds. Since publication of these results,
additional tests with target masses of up to 10 kg have
been conducted with similar results.
Based on this information,the efficiency of the xdevice in these tests can be estimated to be at least 10-5 (0.001 %).

From the quantum point of view, what matters in a scattering
between two particles mediated by a third virtual
particle (the simplest example is the scattering
electron/proton,mediated by a virtual photon) is the
exchanged energy-momentum.This is so true, that the
signs of the electric charges, in the example above, do
not affect the differential cross section. An electron
bounces against a proton exactly the same way a
positron would.
It resembles the coherence of a
laser beam, even though in this case the beam is
probably only virtual in the sense that its existence is
limited in time and it does not have an absolute
intensity. A strict analogy with lasers is impossible
because the resonating cavity is missing. Lasers and
masers, however, are only a particular example of
systems that exhibit so-called self-organized behavior.
These are systems made of a large numbers of particles,
which evolve in time not strictly individually, but with
coordinated dynamics. ''

a reply to: Nochzwei
As already discussed, this is impossible, since the light source can't travel at exactly the speed of light, at least not locally. What will happen just under the speed of light is that the red shifting can get very extreme, to even longer wavelengths than radio waves.

If you discuss non-local phenomena, the expansion of the universe makes for some interesting red-shift features. We can see red-shifted light from galaxies that have, and always have had, recessional velocities greater than the speed of light, though at some point the "light cone" doesn't include Earth so there are some objects in the universe we will never see, no matter how long we wait for their light to reach us, because it never will. Here is an interesting paper explaining this:

Expanding Confusion: common misconceptions of cosmological horizons and the superluminal expansion of the Universe

In the context of the new standard Lambda-CDM cosmology we point out confusions regarding the particle horizon, the event horizon, the "observable universe'' and the Hubble sphere (distance at which recession velocity = c). We show that we can observe galaxies that have, and always have had, recession velocities greater than the speed of light. We explain why this does not violate special relativity and we link these concepts to observational tests.

originally posted by: Choice777
By real for the quarks spin i meant is it a real physical spin ? And who decides what spin is up, left,right, etc..it's not like there's a universal up-down plane that quarks conform to..

The particle spin doesn't correlate directly to any classical concept like say, the Earth's rotation. However that doesn't mean it's not real, it just means we don't know how to describe what causes the quantum angular momentum in classical terms (orbital angular momentum we can, but not particle spin). I don't know how to explain it much better than this...as I said if we focus on experimental results, those give us the best clue as to what is going on:

Spin direction

the spin vector is not very useful in actual quantum mechanical calculations, because it cannot be measured directly: sx, sy and sz cannot possess simultaneous definite values, because of a quantum uncertainty relation between them. However, for statistically large collections of particles that have been placed in the same pure quantum state, such as through the use of a Stern–Gerlach apparatus, the spin vector does have a well-defined experimental meaning: It specifies the direction in ordinary space in which a subsequent detector must be oriented in order to achieve the maximum possible probability (100%) of detecting every particle in the collection. For spin-1/2 particles, this maximum probability drops off smoothly as the angle between the spin vector and the detector increases, until at an angle of 180 degrees—that is, for detectors oriented in the opposite direction to the spin vector—the expectation of detecting particles from the collection reaches a minimum of 0%.

Any good info on quantum foam ?

Not really. This is an area of active research and we have to see what the research will tell us. The results to date seem ambiguous to me.

And a bit of a weird question....does the text bellow resemble anything of proper scientific quality or is it just fake kooky stuff put together to impress a non scientific audience ?
I mean does it actually have proper science behind it or just wishful thinking ?

'' This apparatus is composed of a high-T
superconductor electrode ..."'

I put scientific claims in these four categories though it's more of a continuum than discrete buckets:

1. Mainstream, with high degree of consensus
2. Mainstream, without high degree of consensus
3. Fringe, very little or no consensus or replication
4. Pseudoscience, usually some real science thrown in with completely non-scientific claims

Sometimes the same experiments can fit into both (2) and (3) above, but it's the claims that go in separate categories. Before directly answering your question, let's talk about cold fusion (which has been renamed to "LENR" since the "cold fusion" term is considered the kiss of death).

Pons and Fleischmann were real scientists who found anomalous results. Nothing wrong with that, and scientists like to find anomalous results because they can lead to new science to explain them, and this can be a career-booster. But, before jumping to conclusions about new science, a careful researcher will go to great lengths to explain the results using existing science, since more often than not the anomalous results are not an indication of "new physics", rather, something in the experiment not carefully controlled enough or accounted for well enough.

Pons and Fleischmann can't be faulted for finding anomalous results, it happens all the time. What they can be faulted for is jumping to the conclusion that the anomalous results were definitely the result of some new, not understood physics. That claim hasn't ever panned out of course. On the other hand, I'm not sure all the anomalous results have been explained, but it seemed like there was some correlation to the source of the Palladium, so just completely guessing here, maybe it had to do something with the level of contamination in the palladium, though I've never seen this confirmed, nor have I seen a complete explanation of all the anomalous results.

I said that to paint the canvas for putting Podkletnov's experiments in perspective. He may, like Pons and Fleischmann, be doing real scientific experiments and getting anomalous results. But like Pons and Fleischmann, I'm not convinced he has thoroughly ruled out all the possible sources of his anomalous results, and there are many, many possible sources of error in such experiments dealing with superconductors. So, until someone replicates Podkletnov's research, I have it in the #3 "fringe" category, along with cold fusion. It doesn't seem like complete crackpottery, so I wouldn't put in category 4.

Now the paper you posted is another story. It references Podkletnov's work, but it also discusses very speculative ideas which have no substance or proof at all, along with some proven concepts, so it literally contains claims from all four categories above, but if you want to know specifically about the "tractor beam" claims in that paper, they are very fringe.

Tractor Beam

Gravity impulse and gravity propulsion beams are traditionally areas of research from fringe physics that coincide with the concepts of tractor and repulsor beams.

However there is some real science research on tractor beams:
NASA Studying Ways to Make 'Tractor Beams' a Reality

I specifically deleted all references that would give away the fact that it was Podkletnov s work just so you would not just not reply cause it might be pseudo science.
In reality I was trying to find the exact description of one of his 2 experiments but apparently, as you've said, the quotes are from an article talking about his article.
I was hoping to find the proper article and paste the stuff describing the device which he, Podkletnov , I think, named something along the lines of "beam generator" cause of the perceived beam that pushed various objects across major distances. His other experiment involved a simple round disc superconductor roatating/ted over/by magnetic fields and it apparently was noticed by him and his colleagues to affect a column of cigarette smoke.
Anyway... what I was really aiming for is to get your opinion in a certain scenario regarding his beam generator experiment: he describes his experiment as a superconductor with a hole in the middle through which a high voltage discharge passes. Let's hope for a sec that he actually is producing some type of new force/particle cluster that affect objects at a distance. Is there in your opinion any way or know physics process that could somehow produce some sort of effect on the surface or inside the structure of a superconductor by means of a voltage spike/disgrace so as to created or allow/facilitate the creation/release of this force or particles.... Or in simple terms could his device be actually creating something never before seen by us cause of conjuncture between a high voltage and as of yet still not properly understood superconductor physics ? Could we just hope, even for a second that he might have stumbled upon something ? Cause a force that would be acting upon a pendulum at 1.2 km is hardly linkable to errors in the setup.
There also the thing with many people claiming that UFO might have large volumes of a type of liquid mercury like substance that is a liquid superconductor and it is spun at high speed inside a tokamak like chamber which actually generates the UFO s own gravity field.
See where I'm assuming.. Talk about rotating superconducting substance making its own gravity... Then a guy stumbles on a weird gravity like force when working with a superconductor.
What are the changes...

you said voltage spike/disgrace a typo or some innuendo?
a reply to: Choice777

Thanks, but the light source with extreme time dilation would put out x and gamma rays wouldn't it?.
However if galactic recession is greater than the speed of light, what kind of em waves are the
stars in that galaxy putting out given that the time dilation of that galaxy would be stupendous
or rather more than extreme?
a reply to: Arbitrageur

a reply to: Nochzwei

spike/discharge....i was writing with swype

originally posted by: Choice777
Could we just hope, even for a second that he might have stumbled upon something ? Cause a force that would be acting upon a pendulum at 1.2 km is hardly linkable to errors in the setup.

You can hope for anything. I never said he was wrong, I said his experiments have never been independently verified to my knowledge, and this was the problem for cold fusion. A lot of us had hopes for that which turned out to be false hopes.

Further I don't see how you can claim a force acting on a pendulum at 1.2 km "is hardly linkable to errors in the setup". I can't say much about that experiment, but without some deep knowledge of it, I certainly would not either make or confirm the statement you made. For all I know there could be experimental errors that weren't accounted for, but if you don't have experimental details, it's hard to assess.

To put it another way, it would have been nearly impossible for an outsider reading the faster than light neutrino experiments published by CERN to find the source of the error. I don't think there were any clues about the source of the error in anything they published. You literally had to get into their test equipment to figure out the source of the experimental error in that case, so it can be extremely subtle.

originally posted by: Nochzwei
Thanks, but the light source with extreme time dilation would put out x and gamma rays wouldn't it?.

I interpreted your question as follows:

The light source is emitting "light", in the frame of reference of the light source, which I inferred to be visible light. Let's call this light source observer "B", and let's say it's moving away from observer "A" who will see the light red-shifted, and toward observer "C" who will see the light blue-shifted. So whether the light turns into gamma-rays or radio waves depends on whether the visible light source is moving toward or away from you, but in practice we don't normally see red or blue shifting that extreme.

You may be thinking of another effect which is called Synchrotron radiation, which occurs when we accelerate particles to relativistic velocities in circular supercolliders like the LHC. So we are back to the topic of centripetal acceleration, which is the acceleration which causes the particles in the LHC to follow a circle instead of going in a straight line and this causes not just X-rays but broad spectrum radiation:

Properties of synchrotron radiation

Broad Spectrum (which covers from microwaves to hard X-rays)...

Synchrotron radiation may occur in accelerators either as a nuisance, causing undesired energy loss in particle physics contexts, or as a deliberately produced radiation source for numerous laboratory applications. Electrons are accelerated to high speeds in several stages to achieve a final energy that is typically in the GeV range. In the LHC proton bunches also produce the radiation at increasing amplitude and frequency as they accelerate with respect to the vacuum field, propagating photoelectrons, which in turn propagate secondary electrons from the pipe walls with increasing frequency and density up to 7x10^10. Each proton may lose 6.7keV per turn due to this phenomenon.

Since you didn't say anything about any curved path, I assumed a straight path, which doesn't create synchrotron radiation

However if galactic recession is greater than the speed of light, what kind of em waves are the
stars in that galaxy putting out given that the time dilation of that galaxy would be stupendous
or rather more than extreme?
a reply to: Arbitrageur

If the star in the distant galaxy is the same type, age, and composition as our sun, we assume the light from the star is similar to that of our sun if you were in the same reference frame as that distant star, and moreover given the variety of stars in our galaxy and their light emissions, we expect distant galaxies to similarly have a mix of different star types.

However, as we look at greater distances meaning further back in time, we do see a difference in composition. The older stars don't seem to have as many heavy elements (astronomers call this "lower metallicity"), and this is part of the supporting evidence for the big bang theory. So that means we see less spectral lines from heavier elements, and the light is red-shifted.

This is from the paper I linked in my prior post:

The recession velocity of all galaxies with z >∼ 1.5 exceeds the speed of light in all viable cosmological models. Observations now routinely probe regions that are receding faster than the speed of light.

So let's say we observe a redshift of z=2.0, which means the wavelengths are 200% longer when we observe them compared to the wavelength as emitted, which means they are 300% as long as the original (100% original plus 200% stretching=300%). So the violet light the star emitted at say, 400nm wavelength would appear as 1200nm wavelength to us, or three times as long as when emitted.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

please tell me what's wrong with this chain of thoughts...

this is an [ atom ]
[(-)( + )] electron (-) and proton ( + ), electron is on the left side of the proton in this schema

we have 2 of them separated by any distance "d"
[(-)( + )] ---d--- [(-)( + )]

are they attracting each other by electrostatic force or not ?

originally posted by: KrzYma
a reply to: Arbitrageur

please tell me what's wrong with this chain of thoughts...

this is an [ atom ]
[(-)( + )] electron (-) and proton ( + ), electron is on the left side of the proton in this schema

we have 2 of them separated by any distance "d"
[(-)( + )] ---d--- [(-)( + )]

are they attracting each other by electrostatic force or not ?

Are they within 1 angstrom of each other??