Physics Works

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October 18, 2014 at 3:05 pm

#682627
1

tryptameanie

@tryptameanie

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Just been watching the physics lectures by Walter Lewin who used to teach at MIT. The man has some amazing demonstarations, but fore most you’d have to watch the whole lectures but here’s one.
October 18, 2014 at 6:07 pm

#830276
1

Digital Buddha

@digital-buddha

Participant
reminds me of buying the feynman lecture books thinking i’d be able to do the physics cause i had done the requisite calc courses, was wrong. math is such a wonderful thing
October 18, 2014 at 6:21 pm

#830279
1

tryptameanie

@tryptameanie

Participant
Maths has always had a place in my heart, even if the needed part of the brain to go with it isn’t fully equipped to deal with the more abstract types f pure mathematics.
October 19, 2014 at 12:38 am

#830273
6

General Lighting

@general-lighting

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@Digital Buddha 570492 wrote:

reminds me of buying the feynman lecture books thinking i’d be able to do the physics cause i had done the requisite calc courses, was wrong. math is such a wonderful thing

you probably know more about calculus than I do (my only regret about not knowing it is that I think it can be used to make a data stream of music show up as pretty level meters on a screen by doing maths with the data)
October 19, 2014 at 5:34 am

#830277
1

Digital Buddha

@digital-buddha

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@General Lighting 570671 wrote:

you probably know more about calculus than I do (my only regret about not knowing it is that I think it can be used to make a data stream of music show up as pretty level meters on a screen by doing maths with the data)

i’ve got to do multi variable and calculus based E&M and realitivity for uni, kind of relish it, kind of not.
October 21, 2014 at 10:03 am

#830274
6

General Lighting

@general-lighting

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TBH part of me wishes I did know more as the complex numbers are used in electronics for representing some types of signal; such as in a radio transmitter where you want as much of the signal as possible to go to the antenna rather than reflect back down the cable into the endstage – that can blow up the transistor/FET (which costs around €50-€150 depending on the output power).

But I at least know the basics; and folk cleverer than me can make stuff like this (NXP used to be Philips; I think the lab is in NL). Although you would not usually do things like this it can happen if the antenna mast is brought down by weather.

The reason they change the engineer for each test and its the oldest guy who deliberately shorts the RF output of the end stage to earth with a screwdriver is that there is a EU limit to how much hazardous radiation someone can be exposed to per year and one of its effects is to cause sterility/reproductive problems in younger people… I’m surprised Agentschap Telecom allowed them to do that experiment; unless the whole lab is in a Faraday Cage (it may well be)
October 22, 2014 at 12:23 am

#830278
1

Digital Buddha

@digital-buddha

Participant
i love the EU’s precautionary principle in the US they’d just expect you to sue after you got cancer.
October 22, 2014 at 6:10 am

#830281
1

jaka80

@jaka80

Member
I really think the quantum mechanics part of physics is super interesting. It’s just crazy how these guys like decades before the electron microscope existed could relatively accurately predict what electron will do and where they are. And all the advance on like string theory and the anti-quarks :crazy:
October 22, 2014 at 6:14 am

#830282
1

jaka80

@jaka80

Member
@Digital Buddha 571366 wrote:

i love the EU’s precautionary principle in the US they’d just expect you to sue after you got cancer.

In the US this project wouldn’t even be funded unless they could make it shoot something :oh_god:
October 22, 2014 at 11:00 am

#830275
6

General Lighting

@general-lighting

Moderator
Staff
@jaka80 571382 wrote:

In the US this project wouldn’t even be funded unless they could make it shoot something :oh_god:

we do that here as well (TBH most of the UK’s remaining high tech industry is based around defence and aerospace; Philips had a very well respected defence systems unit until the end of the Cold War and greater stability in Europe, they were one of the first companies to make affordable CCTV equipment for small businesses).

THALES in France/UK makes that sort of stuff (as well as cheap mobile phones, TV set decoders etc); the NXP components are widely used in defence-related projects.

The difference is in Europe emphasis is towards protection and surveillance rather than aggression. What these companies make is deployed to identify and head off a small threat before it becomes so large you need to shoot at it; to prevent ships and aircraft colliding with one another in busy seas and skies and monitor the weather (Europe is 28 small countries mostly surrounded by sea; and there is a lot of weather) or it gets to that stage to check you are shooting at the correct target…
October 22, 2014 at 8:50 pm

#830280
1

tryptameanie

@tryptameanie

Participant
@jaka80 571381 wrote:

I really think the quantum mechanics part of physics is super interesting. It’s just crazy how these guys like decades before the electron microscope existed could relatively accurately predict what electron will do and where they are. And all the advance on like string theory and the anti-quarks :crazy:

For me, the most beautiful thing about mathematics and physics is that the theory predicts reality. Whether it be modern of classical (I say modern and classical because many think of relativity as a modern concept rather than a classical concept), it is just as beautiful, no matter how crazy it seems.
For physicists to move from a determanistic model to a probablistic model before they even knew the structure of atoms, based purely on theory is beautiful. When Diracs equation predicted anti-matter, based on the mathematics, rather than observation, to me that is a beautiful thing. I’ll never understand the deeper mathematics of either subject, but I love the fact that people far knowledgeable than me can understand, and work with, things we aren’t even close to seeing.
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