Physics

i found your essays on relativity and quantum mechanics very informative and intresting. thanks for putting them on the Internet and allowing people to get a good understanding of quantum mechanics.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your kind comments.

Perhaps you could help me with a problem I am having in relation to Relativity, and forgive me if I come off sounding foolish or stupid. What I have trouble understanding is that as objects approach the speed of light, time for those objects slows down, this I know, but if we presume that all objects in the universe are traveling at varying rates of speed, does that not mean that the universe is out of balance time wise?

I do not understand this aspect of relativity. If you have any insight into this, I would greatly appreciate it.

KryssTal Reply: Time is relative. There is no such thing as an absolute time. Each frame of reference has its own unique time. It's only because we tend to travel so slowly that we don't notice these differences in our own lives.

By the way, don't consider yourself stupid about relativity. Very few people understand it completely!

I read your paper on Quantum Mechanics. I would like to thank you for explaining the subject in a language I could understand. Your paper has given rise to a lot of questions for me. These thoughts may seem simple to you, but I'm very simple minded.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your kind comments.

I would tend to agree with the Greeks, and think that matter could not be divided indefinitely.  I would tend to think that once matter was divided to a certain point, it would no longer be matter as we know it.  It may be reduced to a two dimensional state of existence, at which point I would think would put it in another state of existence, which could also alter the physical laws we place on matter.

KryssTal Reply: Space and time as we know it have four dimensions. Some current ideas about the Universe talk about multi-dimentional space.

The reason I think I would agree with the Greeks stems from observations we can make of our physical world. For instance, I can clap, and my hands meet. In order for them to do so, they had to travel half the distance between the hands to meet. The process is repeated over, and over again until there is contact.

KryssTal Reply: You cannot always apply the laws of the macro world (our world) to the atomic world.

You can also take a glass, and mix sugar into it. That would give you a glass of sugared water. If you emptied the glass into an ocean, the sugar would be so diluted, it could no longer be thought of as sugared water, but just water. It would seem matter could be reduced so much that it could no longer be considered matter, but something else.

KryssTal Reply: This is semantics. All water is impure but if the amount of impurity is not detectable then we cannot comment about it. If we rely on taste, then different people will detect different amounts of sugar in a glass of water. Taste can also vary depending on what the taster previously tasted.

Only a chemical test can give an accurate concentration of a substance in water..

I know this seems as if I'm taking more of a philosophical view of Quantum mechanics, but I'm trying to put the ideas in terms I can understand. I view my world in terms of physical things, I think in pictures, and tend to relate things I know nothing about to things I have seen, or know to be true.

KryssTal Reply: This is a problem with Quantum Mechanics not with you. It is a very difficult thing to picture. However, the mathematics can make predictions that can be tested. Much of our modern technology would not exist if Quantum Mechanics was incorrect.

hello

i am writing you to ask if you can give me some possible experiments / science projects that i could do on quantum mechanics having a fair idea of quantum mechanics. i'm a tenth grader in high school so the projects can't be on a professional level but a project that is feasible and one that i can go into depth upon to explain the results of it and why the results come out a particular way using the quantum theory.

i hope that makes sense. anyway if you could do anything to help it would be really be appreciated.

thank you for your time!

KryssTal Reply: What is a tenth grader?

KryssTal Reply: I'm afraid I am not a college or school. If you do a search on Yahoo for your subject, you will find educational establishments that will help.

Good luck.

Your paper on the electromagnetic spectrum is very good. I enjoyed reading it.

Thanks

KryssTal Reply: Very nice of you to say so. Thank you.

Just a note to say thank you for your sites on Quantum Mechanics & Relativity. Very helpful in gaining a better idea, esp. for someone never having gone beyond college algebra & trig!

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your kind comments.

Dear sir,

I have just read your It's Relative page and liked it very much. So much indeed, that I am writing to ask for your permission to print it out and use it with my High School Completion Earth Science class this coming week. Would you kindly take a minute to write back and indicate whether I have your permission to use that material?

Thank you very much indeed.

KryssTal Reply: With my pleasure. Good luck.

Thank you for your prompt response. I am sure my students will enjoy your article. I have had to copy and paste the article in a WORD 6 document, as my printer, for some reason, would not print out of the internet. When I pasted the article, my spelling program disliked the following words: "aether", "Michleson" and "Morley". It insists (the spelling program does) in auto-fixing "aether" to "ether" and "Michleson" to "Michelson". Would you confirm the spelling of the scientist's name so I don't incurr an error?

Thank you kindly for your attention. I have kept the copyright symbol and date, as well as your "questios and comments to ..." from the original webpage in the WORD version of the document I will be discussing with my students.

KryssTal Reply: Ether / aether are both found. Your spellings are correct. I must spell check my web pages!!

I am a 12th grade student and I am trying to put together a paper on the electromagnetic spectrum. As I was searching the web, I came across your page. I found alot of good information there. I thought I would just drop a note and say thank you for making this information available for the rest of us.

KryssTal Reply: You're very welcome - only glad I could be of help. I am assuming you are a teenage student, "12th grade" and "High School" are not used in England; we have "Year x" and "Secondary School" but I don't think the two terms overlap. I also notice that you come from a place called Manchester (I am assuming MI stands for Michegan). Manchester is a very large city in England.

O well, enough chat. Good luck with your paper.

I just visited your site. I am impressed. I have often discussed time over drinks with friends or just people with whom I find myself discussing "things". The fact that some people believe the way we "humans" measure time was created by god. I would like to thank you for giving me a new tool with which to try to enlighten the world.

KryssTal Reply: Thank you for your comments. Good luck with your discussions.

Hi

Sorry to trouble you. I just could not get the conversion table for Tesla (weber) to Amp/meter at your web. Kindly advise if possible, thank you.

KryssTal Reply: Hello there. Hope this helps:

Check out my Metric page.

Hi

I just finished reading your It's Relative site and found it incredibly useful and interesting - I have to do an assignment on relativity, and your site has given me a better understanding of the theory. Thank you very much!! :)

KryssTal Reply: You're welcome. Good luck with your essay.

Hello Kryss,

In your page The Electromagnetic Spectrum you state that infrared is used in microwaves to vibrate the water molcules.That is not correct a microwave oven uses microwaves to vibrate the molcules which in turn causes heat due to the friction between molcules,the rate at which they are vibrated is why water or food containing water gets hot so fast (1.5-2GHz)

Here is a little something you can try:

you will need two coffee mugs and one incandesent light bulb, fill one coffee mug with water and then place the bulb right-side-up in the other mug,place both mugs in the microwave, set the ovens timer for 10 seconds and see what happens (the water is to abbsorb some microwave energy to take some stress off the magnatron)

NOTE: do not run for more than 10 seconds!!! and let the bulb sit for five minutes before touching it!! also after you do this the bulb will not work.

this is just a little demo to show you that microwaves are present not infrared.

if you want more info on why this works feel free to e-mail me.

Dear Kryss,

I was surprised to see that your list of the values of the physical constants contained some values that differed by significant amounts from the values listed in my copy of "The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" - albeit the edition I have dates back to 1993-4 (74th. ed.). Their values , listed on page 1-1, are taken from the 1986 CODATA Recommended Values. If there has been an update to these values I would be grateful if you would be good enough to supply a reference or web address to these newer values. I am not a physicist but I do need to be sure that the values I use in a conversion program are values currently in use. Thanking you in anticipation of any help you can provide.