Related papers: Oscar's Physics Phaire: A Collection of Problems
The answer to the question in the title is: in search of new physics beyond the Standard Model, for which there are many motivations, including the likely instability of the electroweak vacuum, dark matter, the origin of matter, the masses…
The main point of this paper is to present a class of equations over integers that one can check if they have a solution by checking a set of inequalities. The prototype of such equations is the equations appearing in the well-known…
Linear differential equations of arbitrary order with polynomial coefficients are considered. Specifically, necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of polynomial solutions of a given degree are obtained for these equations. An…
While the axiomatic introduction of a probability distribution over a space is common, its use for making predictions, using physical theories and prior knowledge, suffers from a lack of formalization. We propose to introduce, in the space…
Many of the classic problems of particle physics appear in a very different light when viewed from the perspective of the multiverse. Most importantly the two great ``fine tuning'' problems that motivate the field are far less serious when…
Several examples are used to illustrate how we deal cavalierly with infinities and unphysical systems in physics. Upon examining these examples in the context of infinities from Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers, the only known…
The classic brachistrochrone problem is standard material in intermediate mechanics. Many variations exist including some accessible to introductory students. While a quantitative solution isn't feasible in introductory classes, qualitative…
All attempts to quantize gravity face several difficult problems. Among these problems are: (i) metric positivity (positivity of the spatial distance between distinct points), (ii) the presence of anomalies (partial second-class nature of…
In this article we describe special type of mathematical problems that may help develop teaching methods that motivate students to explore patterns, formulate conjectures and find solutions without only memorizing formulas and procedures.…
Sliding friction is usually introduced in high school, but rarely through activities in laboratory. A qualitative introduction to friction is presented by proposing exploration of different kind of materials in order to suggest which…
An earlier paper [1] presented a gravity theory based on the optics of de Broglie waves rather than curved space-time. While the universe's geometry is flat, it agrees with the standard tests of general relativity. A second paper [2] showed…
In this paper we introduce and investigate a new kind of functional (including ordinary and evolutionary partial) differential equations. The main goal of this paper is to explore our new philosophy by some examples on functional ODEs and…
This contribution shows that the main topics of Relativity can be discussed at an elementary level and in a considerable extent - including the formal results of "Time Dilation" and "Lorentz Contraction" - by a minor modification of the…
We present the foundations of a new approach to the Casimir effect based on classical ray optics. We show that a very useful approximation to the Casimir force between arbitrarily shaped smooth conductors can be obtained from knowledge of…
This paper provides an enjoyable example through which several concepts of classical mechanics can be understood. We introduce an equation that models the motion of a cat in the presence of a person. The cat is considered as a point…
We describe a course designed to help future educators build an integrated understanding of the different elements of physics education research (PER), including: research into student learning, content knowledge from the perspective of how…
The problem of the existence and uniqueness of the motion of the system of an arbitrary number linear oscillators under a generalized dry-friction type control is studied. This type of control arises in the problem of steering the system to…
It is shown that physical mechanics for pointlike bodies can be effectively modeled in terms of the action of transformation groups that act as symmetries of the solutions of systems of differential equations that describe the integrability…
In this note we briefly survey and propose some open problems related to isoparametric theory.
Physics is a model of nature able to both describe and predict the results of measurements made with respect to reference systems. These reference systems, in turn, are themselves physical and thus subject to the laws of physics. The…