Related papers: Sliding rope paradox
Recently, the educational initiative TED-Ed has published a popular brain teaser coined the 'frog riddle', which illustrates non-intuitive implications of conditional probabilities. In its intended form, the frog riddle is a reformulation…
To understand the mechanics of a complex fluid such as a foam we propose a model experiment (a bidimensional flow around an obstacle) for which an external sollicitation is applied, and a local response is measured, simultaneously. We…
The fundamental fact is revealed that in the old good quantum mechanics there is possible such unexpected inversion: potential barriers can drag in wave-particles and wells can push them off.
In the present paper we revisit, theoretical and experimentally, the fall of a folded U-chain and of a pile-chain. The model calculation implies the division of the whole system into two subsystems of variable mass, allowing to explore the…
A reformulation of the Hoop Conjecture based on the concept of trapped circle is presented. The problems of severe compactness in every spatial direction, and of how to superpose the hoops with the surface of the black hole, are resolved. A…
A goal of physics is to understand the greatest possible breadth of natural phenomena in terms of the most economical set of basic concepts. However, as the understanding of physics has developed historically, its pedagogy and language have…
A Pomeron phenomenon remains a mystery. A short review of the experimental situation in diffractive physics and an account of some spectacular manifestations of the Pomeron are given.
The purpose of this paper is describe Lagrangian Mechanics for constrained systems on Lie algebroids, a natural framework which covers a wide range of situations (systems on Lie groups, quotients by the action of a Lie group, standard…
The concept of random dynamical system is a comparatively recent development combining ideas and methods from the well developed areas of probability theory and dynamical systems. Due to our inaccurate knowledge of the particular physical…
This article is devoted to the study of which appears as the most famous paradoxes of quantum theory (Schrodinger cat, EPR argument and Aspect experiments, delayed choice experiments and retrocausality problems). Through these experiments,…
We show how degeneracies, accidental or otherwise, can obscure some interesting physics. We further show how one can get around this problem.
In spite of its popularity, it has not been possible to vindicate the conventional wisdom that classical mechanics is a limiting case of quantum mechanics. The purpose of the present paper is to offer an alternative point of view in which…
Highly successful students, as measured by grades and by scores on the Force Concept Inventory, still struggle with fundamental concepts in mathematics and physics. These difficulties, which turn physics into parrot learning and include…
We review why the Thomas rotation is a crucial facet of special relativity, that is just as fundamental, and just as "unintuitive" and "paradoxical", as such traditional effects as length contraction, time dilation, and the ambiguity of…
In this paper, a solution to Zeno's paradox of motion was offered and a possible, based on observations and empirical viewpoint, interpretation. A gedanken experiment was proposed in accordance to our empirical and experimental paradigm,…
Whoever has to learn or to teach thermodynamics is confronted with conceptual difficulties which are specific to this field of physics ([1],[2]). It seems that they can be eliminated by inserting relativity in the thermodynamic theory. The…
Quantum effects and, in particular, entanglement are by now widely recognized in all areas of physics and related fields. However, we feel that the precise notion of entanglement---though mathematically well-defined---still generates…
We formulate a problem on diamagnetic levitation, which may be suitable for specialized high-school or first-year students in physical sciences. We guide the students, step-by-step, through the physics of diamagnetic levitation. The…
The present experimental and theoretical knowledge of the physics of electroweak symmetry breaking is reviewed. Data still favor a light Higgs boson, of a kind that can be comfortably accommodated in the Standard Model or in its Minimal…
The dynamics of the tip of the falling chain is analyzed. Results of laboratory experiments are presented and compared with results of numerical simulations. Time dependences of the velocity and the acceleration of the chain tip for a…