Natural Science Forum / Physics / Research / September 2004

The theoretical basis of the mechanics of continua is the
first field theory, and is often neglected. We can learn a lot
about fields from this theory.
The Lagrangian for cold matter is the 4-form

The general wavefunction for a free particle is:
Y (x,t) = A cos( kx - wt) + iA sin (kx - wt)
and the complex conjugate is:
Y*(x,t) = A cos( kx - wt) - iA sin (kx - wt)

As a student I was taught about MHD and plasmas as nonrelativistic
theories. I have always thought that this is a mistake from the start.
How can one have a non-relativistic theory of the EM field?
Is not EM fundamentally relativistic, especially if one is going

Why would the existence of magnetic monopoles mean that electric
charge is quantized as Paul Dirac thought?

I'm looking for an endorsement so that I can submit an article to
the physics.ed-ph section of arXiv. According to the rules, the
endorsement must come from someone who's registered as an endorser
for the physics.ed-ph (Physics Education) subject class of arXiv.

Google is your friend:
http://www.fact-index.com/q/qu/quantum_computer.html
has answers to most of your detailled questions.
However, I'll take a stab at answering your first question, because I'm

Based on what I've read by Feynman on QED he says there are ways of
the photon travelling faster or slower than the speed of light:
<quote>
It may surprise you that there is an amplitude for a photon to go at

How much disruption or inconvenience would mainline physics theories
suffer if a magnetic monopole were found. GTR would not be impacted.
What of the quantum type theories?
Bob Kolker

According to Klein's erlanger program, Euclidean geometry(in two
dimensions) is a study of invariants of the groups of rigid motions of the
plane. Hence , isnt it true that if we begin with just the vector space
R^2 and the group of rigid motions(taken as an abstract group), we ...

Dear physicists, as you know, recently Prof. Erdal Inonu from Sabanci
University in Istanbul, Turkey, won the Wigner medal for his
contribution to Inonu-Wigner contraction. The media mentioned the
event but no one really explained what this inonu-wigner contraction

What do you gravity experts think of:
Emergence of a 4D World from Causal Quantum Gravity
J. Ambj=F8rn, J. Jurkiewicz, and R. Loll
Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 131301 (2004)

   I've been wondering if anyone has looked at the observational
constraints on the properties of Dark Matter.
   For example, if Dark Matter had its own equivalent of
electromagnetic or nuclear forces, it might be able to form atoms

Being a physicist, I am comfortable with using Fourier transforms
to swap from time to frequency spaces.  This involves (to within a
constant or so..)taking the integral from negative infinity to
positive infinity.

Skimming over the latest entry in the String Coffee Table (not
understanding any of it) I was plunged into some of the discussions on
the relaxed quantization conditions with some people arguing that that
alone was basis enough not to take QLG serious. This triggered some

Let's say we write down the Schroedinger equation for hydrogen. We
then solve it and get among other things the pdf for the electron's
orbit.
My question is: why didn't I use the pdf of the electron as a form