display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
14 ideas
20622 | All motions are relative and ambiguous, but acceleration is the same in all inertial frames [Close] |
Full Idea: There is no absolute state of rest; only relative motions are unambiguous. Contrast this with acceleration, however, which has the same magnitude in all inertial frames. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Newton's') | |
A reaction: It seems important to remember this, before we start trumpeting about the whole of physics being relative. ....But see Idea 20634! |
20628 | The electric and magnetic are tightly linked, and viewed according to your own motion [Close] |
Full Idea: Electric and magnetic phenomena are profoundly intertwined; what you interpret as electric or magnetic thus depends on your own motion. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!') | |
A reaction: This sounds like an earlier version of special relativity. |
20635 | The general relativity equations relate curvature in space-time to density of energy-momentum [Close] |
Full Idea: The essence of general relativity relates 'curvature in space-time' on one side of the equation to the 'density of momentum and energy' on the other. ...In full, Einstein required ten equations of this type. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 5 'Gravity') | |
A reaction: Momentum involves mass, and energy is equivalent to mass (e=mc^2). |
20642 | Photon exchange drives the electro-magnetic force [Close] |
Full Idea: The exchange of photons drives the electro-magnetic force. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 6 'Superstrings') | |
A reaction: So light, which we just think of as what is visible, is a mere side-effect of the engine room of nature - the core mechanism of the whole electro-magnetic field. |
20627 | Electric fields have four basic laws (two by Gauss, one by Ampère, one by Faraday) [Close] |
Full Idea: Four basic laws of electric and magnetic fields: Gauss's Law (about the flux produced by a field), Gauss's law of magnets (there can be no monopoles), Ampère's Law (fields on surfaces), and Farday's Law (accelerated magnets produce fields). | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!') | |
A reaction: [Highly compressed, for an overview. Close explains them] |
20630 | Light isn't just emitted in quanta called photons - light is photons [Close] |
Full Idea: Planck had assumed that light is emitted in quanta called photons. Einstein went further - light is photons. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!') | |
A reaction: The point is that light travels as entities which are photons, rather than the emissions being quantized packets of some other stuff. |
20637 | In general relativity the energy and momentum of photons subjects them to gravity [Close] |
Full Idea: In Einstein's general theory, gravity acts also on energy and momentum, not simply on mass. For example, massless photons of light feel the gravitational attraction of the Sun and can be deflected. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 5 'Planck') | |
A reaction: Ah, a puzzle solved. How come massless photons are bent by gravity? |
20629 | Electro-magnetic waves travel at light speed - so light is electromagnetism! [Close] |
Full Idea: Faradays' measurements predicted the speed of electro-magnetic waves, which happened to be the speed of light, so Maxwell made an inspired leap: light is an electromagnetic wave! | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!') | |
A reaction: Put that way, it doesn't sound like an 'inspired' leap, because travelling at exactly the same speed seems a pretty good indication that they are the same sort of thing. (But I'm not denying that Maxwell was a special guy!) |
20632 | In QED, electro-magnetism exists in quantum states, emitting and absorbing electrons [Close] |
Full Idea: Dirac created quantum electrodynamics (QED): the universal electro-magnetic field can exist in discreet states of energy (with photons appearing and disappearing by energy excitations. This combined classical ideas, quantum theory and special relativity. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!') | |
A reaction: Close says this is the theory of everything in atomic structure, but not in nuclei (which needs QCD and QFD). So if there are lots of other 'fields' (e.g. gravitational, weak, strong, Higgs), how do they all fit together? Do they talk to one another? |
20639 | Quantum fields contain continual rapid creation and disappearance [Close] |
Full Idea: Quantum field theory implies that the vacuum of space is filled with particles and antiparticles which bubble in and out of existence on faster and faster timescales over shorter and shorter distances. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 6 'Intro') | |
A reaction: Ponder this sentence until you head aches. Existence, but not as we know it, Jim. Close says calculations in QED about the electron confirm this. |
20631 | Dirac showed how electrons conform to special relativity [Close] |
Full Idea: In 1928 Paul Dirac discovered the quantum equation that describes the electron and conforms to the requirements special relativity theory. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!') | |
A reaction: This sounds like a major step in the unification of physics. Quantum theory and General relativity remain irreconcilable. |
20641 | Electrons get their mass by interaction with the Higgs field [Close] |
Full Idea: The electron gets its mass by interaction with the ubiquitous Higgs field. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 6 'Hierarchy') | |
A reaction: I thought I understood mass until I read this. Is it just wrong to say the mass of a table is the 'amount of stuff' in it? |
20626 | Modern theories of matter are grounded in heat, work and energy [Close] |
Full Idea: The link between temperature, heat, work and energy is at the root of our historical ability to construct theories of matter, such as Newton's dynamics, while ignoring, and indeed being ignorant of - atomic dimensions. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Arrow') | |
A reaction: That is, presumably, that even when you fill in the atoms, and the standard model of physics, these aspects of matter do the main explaiining (of the behaviour, rather than of the structure). |
20633 | The Higgs field is an electroweak plasma - but we don't know what stuff it consists of [Close] |
Full Idea: In 2012 it was confirmed that we are immersed in an electroweak plasma - the Higgs field. We curently have no knowledge of what this stuff might consist of. | |
From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 4 'Higgs') | |
A reaction: The second sentence has my full attention. So we don't understand a field properly until we understand the 'stuff' it is made of? So what are all the familiar fields made of? Tell me more! |