Natural Science Forum / Physics / General Physics / July 2008

Uncle Al, please elaborate on the experimental evidence to support
such a belief. That's what popular theory tell us, but what is the
experimental eveidence supporting such a belief.  Al, I once read that
the moon was made of green cheese, but experimental evidence was hard
pressed to support this!

You remind me of a guy that went though undergraduate school with me.
This guy was brilliant, a state chess master, with a photographic
memory that could read and recite the entire conctent of a book he had
read, but he had one small problem.  He could not practically make
application of all the facts that he knew.

Now this guy was a dear friend of mine, who had a measured IQ that ran
off the measurement scale, and for 3-semester in a row was parntered
me in EE Lab.  I will concede that this guy was extremely brilliant
and could play me in a game of chess without even a chessboard, simply
by rememboring the moves made by each player. Still, each sunday
evening I would get a telephone call from my friend to ask me to
explain how to make sense out of the measurments we had recorded
during EE Lab experiments. Simple as these experiments were, I would
spend hours explaining to him what the measurements were indicative
of, and how they related to the goal of the exercise. My wife of 49
year still remembers, and often ask me if I know what ever happened to
Richard after I graduated an we lost touch. (I don't believe that I
have ever revealed to her that in the 2nd of 3 semesters in
Theoretical Mechanics, Richard opted to transfer to a major in
business.)  I totally lost touch with Richard after that point.  In
retrospect, I really don't believe that he "ever got it" in physics,
so he was likely better off in business.

Now Al, some of us have particlarly focused talents...Some relate to
our memory skills, and others to analytical skills.

In law, biology, and chemistry, memory skills mean a great deal, and
analytical ability is secondary.  In physics and engineering, memory
retention is largely focused on priciple comprhension, physical
parameters are found in the current literature.  IIRC you, Al, are a
chemist, and for a physicist like myself, those required courses in
organic chemistry and physical chemistry were a real drag, since most
were in want of any serious theoretical concepts, and like the biology
of that day, mostly memorization of what to me at the time were
obscure chemical structures of equally obscure organics, and physical
chemistry was not much better. If any subject is worth of students
using cheat sheets, it was a tough choice between organic chemistry
and physical chemistry. What it better, on the chemistry exams,
physics students who had no grasp of the molecular weight of an exotic
variant on difluouro, dimethyl, pentane oxide were required to solve a
problem involving molecular weights. The molecular weights were
supplied to the physics majors at a price of 5-10% off their final
test grade, So at that point, it became obvious that the chem
department was rigging the exam to favor chem majors over physics
majors (who usually scored higher). When it came to the p.chem exams,
traditionally all the physics majors scored higher than the chem
majors, particulary on the ACS examines given during those years.

Al, in in no way is this is a putdown because your posts are an asset
to the sci newsgroups and rarely inacurate, in spite of what some will
complain about.   You are like me in the sense that neither of us has
any sensitivy for the feelings of others. Who cares!  Speaking
honestly is the point, and you do this so well.

Harry C.

Come on Al! Are you saying that photon torpedoes are ineffective. I
think all of us here know better than that!

No Jim, that's the theory, not the fact.

Most of the newbies on sci.physics tend to confuse reality with
theoretical speculation.  Since you tend to post good information,
please do not fall into this trap.

Harry C.

thank you. that's what i was looking for

On Jul 4, 3:12 am, "hhc...@yahoo.com" <hhc...@yahoo.com> wrote:

how do i know? as i understand it, the positron was predicted by
equations before it was actually discovered. And nothing we know about
it contradicts those equations. and i don't have my own particle
accelerator to play with it. so, i trust people who have the
possibility to have fun. To me matter and antimatter interacting in
e=mc^2 seems plausible. If you have got something better, let me know
it

On Jul 4, 8:42 am, frankli...@yahoo.com wrote:

from http://www.geocities.com/franklinhu/quarks.html :
'''
For example, why is
the proton/neutron weight so similar? The answer is that the proton
contains all the mass of the neutron and the positron adds little
additional mass.
'''

sorry to disappoint you, but neutron is the heavier one ...

anyway, i've read that in quantum physics within an interaction a
particle and antiparticle can spontaneously arise from the photon and
then, attracted by each other charge annihilate. I do think that
quantum physics is purely mathematical probabilistic description, but
it gives good predictions, so everyone likes it. Anyway, what i wanted
to say is that if you'd like to introduce new kind of particle physics
you may like to coordinate it with everything else that we know and
what depends on it.

On Jul 4, 8:42 am, frankli...@yahoo.com wrote:

from http://www.geocities.com/franklinhu/quarks.html :
'''
For example, why is
the proton/neutron weight so similar? The answer is that the proton
contains all the mass of the neutron and the positron adds little
additional mass.
'''

sorry to disappoint you, but neutron is the heavier one ...

anyway, i've read that in quantum physics within an interaction a
particle and antiparticle can spontaneously arise from the photon and
then, attracted by each other charge annihilate. I do think that
quantum physics is purely mathematical probabilistic description, but
it gives good predictions, so everyone likes it. Anyway, what i wanted
to say is that if you'd like to introduce new kind of particle physics
you may like to coordinate it with everything else that we know and
what depends on it.

On Jul 4, 8:42 am, frankli...@yahoo.com wrote:

from http://www.geocities.com/franklinhu/quarks.html :
'''
This explains a few puzzling facts about protons. For example, why is
the proton/neutron weight so similar? The answer is that the proton
contains all the mass of the neutron and the positron adds little
additional mass.
'''
a) neutron is the heavier one
b) masses won't match anyway

---
guess, we're stuck with old-schooled physics then ....