edguy99
A wealthy man wants to predict the outcome of a horse race. Not knowing how, he looks for some expert advice. He talks to a biologist who says he could genetically engineer an unbeatable racehorse, but it would take a long time and lots and lots of money. He talks to a statistician who says he could predict the outcome […]
edguy99
Before modelling protons and electrons under the coulomb force, a quick note about time scales and distance scales. Distances on the atomic scale for protons and atoms are often measured in picometers (10‾¹²), where the Bohr radius is 53pm. For electrons, distances can go as small as the Lorentz radius of 3 femtometers (10‾¹⁵). For tracking electrons, attoseconds (10‾¹⁸) is […]
edguy99
In his Autobiographical Notes in 1949, Einstein wrote of the special theory It is striking that the theory introduces two kinds of physical things, i.e., (1) measuring rods and clocks, and (2) all other things, e.g., the electromagnetic field, the material point, etc. In the last blog entry, we set the measuring rods to picometers (10‾¹²) and our clocks to […]