## Top new questions this week:

### What's the point of Hamiltonian mechanics?

I've just finished a Classical Mechanics course, and looking back on it some things are not quite clear. In the first half we covered the Lagrangian formalism, which I thought was pretty cool. I …

classical-mechanics lagrangian-formalism hamiltonian-formalism

### Why treat complex scalar field and its complex conjugate as two different fields?

I am new to QFT, so I may have some of the terminology incorrect. Many QFT books provide an example of deriving equations of motion for various free theories. One example is for a complex scalar …

quantum-field-theory complex-numbers

### Winter solstice, sunrise and sunset time

We all know the Winter Solstice comes on December the 20th or 21st, which is (by definition) the shortest day of the year. The Winter Solstice day is not the day of the year the Sun rises later (that …

astronomy solstice

### Does the weight of an hourglass change when sands are falling inside?

An hourglass H weighs h. When it's placed on a scale with all the sand rested in the lower portion, the scale reads weight x where x = h. Now, if you turn the hourglass upside down to let the sand …

mass free-fall weight

### Causes of hexagonal shape of Saturn's jet stream

NASA has just shown a more detailed picture of the hexagonal vortex/storm on Saturn: http://www.ibtimes.com/nasa-releases-images-saturns-hexagon-mega-storm-may-have-been-swirling-centuries-1496218 …

astrophysics planets aerodynamics atmospheric-science solitons

### Is the total energy of earth changing with time?

Many years ego, Earth was hot and over time, it has lost energy and has got colder. Is it now in equilibrium or its total energy is changing?

thermodynamics energy earth geophysics

### How does one measure space-like geodesics? Or: What is the physical interpretation of space-like geodesics?

In general relativity, time-like geodesics are the trajectories of free-falling test particles, parametrized by proper time. Thus, they are easy to interpret in physical terms and are easy to measure …

general-relativity geodesics

## Greatest hits from previous weeks:

### Is aluminium magnetic?

From high school, I remember that Aluminium has 13 electrons and thus has an unpaired electron in the 3p shell. This should make Aluminium magnetic. However, the wiki page of Aluminium says its …

electromagnetism

### Buoyancy: helium vs hydrogen balloons

Given I have two identical balloons on earth, how will the buoyancy compare between the one filled with helium and another filled with hydrogen? How can I calculate the ratio of buoyancy given two …

buoyancy

### Causality for the Dirac Field

In Peskin & Schroeder page 54, they are trying to show how far they can take the idea of a commutator for the Dirac field instead of anti-commutator. To this end they are examining causality, …

homework quantum-field-theory

### Understanding the virtual states referenced in multiphoton absorption studies

The Heisenberg energy-time uncertainty tells us that we can have so-called virtual states between eigenstates as long as the lifetime of these states is at most: $\tau = (\frac{h}{4 \pi E_v})$ Where …

photons uncertainty-principle non-linear-optics absorption