Related papers: The weight of a falling chain, revisited
We show that the gauge hierarchy problem can be solved in the framework of scalar-tensor theories of gravity very much in the same way as it is solved in the Randall-Sundrum scenario. Our solution involves a fine-tuning of the gravitational…
We investigate the conditions leading to large drag force fluctuations in granular materials. The study is based on a set of experimental drag tests, which involve pulling a plate vertically through a cohesionless granular material. In…
This research article presents stress distribution and fracture analysis of a cantilever beam considering both continuum and lumped distribution of gravity force. Airy stress function is used to derive two-dimensional stress distribution…
Gauge fixing may be done in different ways. We show that using the chain structure to describe a constrained system, enables us to use either a perfect gauge, in which all gauged degrees of freedom are determined; or an imperfect gauge, in…
Using Brownian dynamics, we simulate the fracture of polymer interfaces reinforced by diblock connector chains. We find that for short chains the interface fracture toughness depends linearly on the degree of polymerization $N$ of the…
In these lectures I review the status of gravity from the point of view of the gauge principle and renormalization, the main tools in the toolbox of theoretical particle physics. In the first lecture I start from the old question "in what…
The construction of the scalar theory based on the concept of gravity as Archimedes' thrust is briefly summarized, emphasizing the two (extreme) possibilities that result from this concept for the gravitational rod contraction: it can…
Soap films hanging from a wire frame are studied in the framework of capillarity theory. Minimizers in the corresponding variational problem are known to consist of positive volume regions with boundaries of constant mean…
When a light scalar field with gravitational strength interacts with matter, the weak equivalence principle is in general violated, leading for instance to a violation of the universality of free fall. This has been known and tested for a…
The concept of 'deformable arm scale' (completely different from a traditional rigid arm balance) is theoretically introduced and experimentally validated. The idea is not intuitive, but is the result of nonlinear equilibrium kinematics of…
Liquid drops adhere to solid surfaces due to surface tension but can depin and run back along the surface due to wind or gravity forcing. This work develops a simple mechanistic model for depinning by combined gravity and…
We consider the optimization of the vector of grasping forces that support a known generalized force acting on the grasped object---a rigid body or a mechanism. Working in the framework of finite-dimensional normed vector spaces and their…
We have looked into an experiment that has been termed the ``canonical example'' of jamming: granular material, clogging the outlet of a container as it is discharged by gravity. We present quantitative data of such an experiment. The…
Every university introductory physics course considers the problem of Atwood's machine taking into account the mass of the pulley. In the usual treatment the tensions at the two ends of the string are offhandedly taken to act on the pulley…
We study the bending rigidity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes, for both a single chain and many chains forming a bundle. A theory is developed to account for the interplay between competitive binding of counterions and charge…
In this paper, a model is proposed to solve the gauge hierarchy problem. Beyond the standard model, we introduce an extra scalar field that non-minimally couples to gravity. The fundamental scale is set at weak scale and Planck scale…
We consider experimentally and computationally the phenomenon of the reverse Janssen effect, involving the counterintuitive finding that the force on the base of a column containing granular particles may be larger than the weight of the…
The breaking rate of an atomic chain stretched at zero temperature by a constant force can be calculated in a quasiclassical approximation by finding the localized solutions ("bounces") of the equations of classical dynamics in imaginary…
A liquid drop sitting on an elastic rod may act as a winch, or windlass, and pull the rod inside itself and coil it. This windlass effect has been shown to be generated by surface tension forces and to work best for small systems. Here we…
Have our fundamental theories got time right? Does size really matter? Or is physics all in the eyes of the beholder? In this essay, we question the origin of time and scale by reevaluating the nature of measurement. We then argue for a…