User talk:Voyajer

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Welcome!

Hello Voyajer, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 01:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More welcome!

Hi, based on your edits, you might be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics and Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics and in particular, the discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. There may be similar projects for history or biography, but I am not aware of these.linas 18:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inertia

i see where you have put in lots of hard work on the inertia article and many good comments on the talk page. Kenny56 04:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Optical physics

You added some great material to optical physics. I edited the page to try and blend the old material with the new. I hope I got the right sense of things...there were a few sentences I wasn't sure of.--Srleffler 02:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Call for Help

I noticed your calls for help on Magnetic quantum number. Here's how you do it:

For subscripting math tagged formulas, you don't use sub tags. Instead, a subscript looks like <math>a_2</math>: $a 2$ . See more here: Help:Formula.

The "prettytable" formatting for tabular data is accessible using the wikitable class. Find more here: Wikipedia:How to use tables. Wikipedia has it's own table syntax which is usually easier to read.

If you have any more questions, I'd be more than happy to help! — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 02:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

We message other people using user talk pages. The way you do this is click on the "talk" link on my signature (or click my username and then click the talk tab) and then editing the page, adding your message. If you click the little + sign next to talk pages, it will give you a form to create a new section. Once again, Wikipedia:Talk pages will you tell you pretty much everything you need to know. And, as kzollman pointed out, make sure you sign your comments with ~~~~. Well, try it out! ;-) — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 02:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem. You have made some great contributions to physics related articles and I hope you like it here as a Wikipedian. :-D — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 02:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] thanks

I saw your changes to the "simplified" article on quantum mechanics. The person who started that article seemed to have had some definite ideas on what to accomplish, but s/he has not contributed lately. I have been trying to approach things as much as possible from the historical and experiential standpoint rather than jumping in to material that not even a first-year college physics student would necessarily be able to handle. I have a tendency to write from memory and then go back and double-check the details, so a second set of eyes is always greatly appreciated. I've also started an article on Heisenberg's_microscope. I have an odd mind, I'm afraid, one that cannot visualize a familiar thing such as the face of my grandmother and yet I use a kind of constructive visualization that is generally my first resource when I am trying to understand and/or describe a physical process. That is one reason that I have tried in the microscope article to supply the visualizations for beginners who may be so unfamiliar with the whole thing that the words and the equations remain totally abstract.

I started out as a physics major at Stanford, and one of the little illuminating moments in my first-year lab involved a grad student leading the lab who attempted to discover why a DC socket in the lab bench was not behaving as expected. He stuck one probe from a multi-meter into one side and then the other side of the socket and then exclaimed: "No potential!" I might not have been able to do some of the electricity math as well as he could, but I could have built the multi-meter from scratch. Sometimes the equations can just be too abstract. I'm sorry for kids who go through life without the opportunity to lift the corner of a refrigerator with a lever, wire an a.c. doorbell, make a crystal radio, or experience the joy of becoming part of a 600 VAC circuit for even a brief time. (Fortunately in my case the amperage was low enough to make it a learning experience rather than a terminal experience. ;-) )

So that's why I've tried to produce diagrams. In the case of the microscope, I want to go back to a book by Heisenberg I have and at least paraphrase his own clear explanations. (I wish all of the people who write science articles for Wikipedia could write as clearly as some of the real giants.)

Thanks for your help. P0M 01:05, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The microscope thought experiment was conceived and described from the point of view of classical physics, and working things out to the point that the classical way of looking at things showed its defects was, historically, very important. What I want to do first is to explain the actual process of thought because Heisenberg was in essentially the same position as the average reader who approaches QM from an everyday point of view.

I had, and fortunately saved to my hard drive, many changes to the simplified QM article, and then I noticed the "Wolf Ticket" at the top saying "Don't edit this article without consulting with me first" -- or words to that effect. I haven't had time to print out my version and go back and make changes. There are not only spelling problems. There are also fuzzy formulations that can mislead readers at least enough to get them annoyed, maybe enough to do worse.

Merry Christmas!

[edit] Change of Address

Hi,

I moved us to Basic_Quantum_Mechanics. The change should have appeared on my watchlist, but it didn't. Maybe the system will catch up with itself. The next thing we should do is tract down all of the wikilinks to the original page title and change them so people don't end up with an empty article or something. P0M 20:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New article

Hi,

I saw your mention of the intention to start a new article. There is already one article that I was going to mention to you at some time. Maybe you've already seen it. A researcher named Ingham started it. It almost immediately received a request for deletion. I felt that he was trying to say something, and what he was trying to say might be of real interest. I asked him questions about what he meant and what citations he could supply. He was not very responsive, giving as citation a 2 volume book, but no page number or anything. I wrote some stuff hoping to make smoke him out as it were on some of the things that he had been saying. In almost all cases he accepted what I had put in, even though it seemed to me to be contrary to what I thought he probably meant. Physics grad students have told me that what he wrote is correct, but I haven't gotten a clear answer on what he actually meant. Partly for my own curiosity, but also because I figured if I couldn't make heads or tails out of it then the average well-informed reader wasn't going to understand it either, I continued to try to get some points cleared up. Finally a writer who usually does global warming stuff, if I recall correctly, ripped hell out of the article, leaving virtually nothing of what Ingham had put into it in the beginning. But you might be interested to look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophical_interpretation_of_classical_physics&diff=23358013&oldid=23357588 and maybe dip in a few times up until Nov. 3 or thereabouts when the ax fell.

P0M 20:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The ideas in the early form of the article are not in any obvious way what Messiah has to say. I have his two-volume book, which our library fortunately bought at some time in the past, and looked in vain for the backup that Ingham claimed is in there. Messiah is not dogmatic about anything, nor is he muddy in the way he writes. I agree that after 3 Nov. nothing of any value was left in the article.

As I recall, Ingham claims that there is absolute determinancy in the quantum realm. Then we (in some way that Ingham refused to state) "bring it out to" the macro world, and in that process we introduce a probabilistic factor. I tried to apply what he said to the double-slit experiment. He would be saying that it is a matter of absolute certainty what is going to happen to a photon at the time it is emitted, and therefore (as I read him), exactly where it ends up on the detector screen (i.e., the opposite wall where we have a sheet of photographic film or whatever) is a matter of exact certainty. Then human get involved and "bring it up to the macro level" and all of a sudden where it arrives is indeterminate. He seems to have in mind a Bohm-type theory of hidden variables, but he doesn't say that, and if I remember correctly he came close to denying that in one of our communications. His idea would also run afoul of the Bell experiments. What I tried to get out of him was an operational definition (even an informal one) for things like "bringing it up." I can guess, but after you've guessed at a couple of things there is no point in going on because you either guess to fit your own ideas of what he ought to be saying or you guess to fit your own ideas of what somebody else might be saying but you can't know that it is really the author's position. So you can't agree with it and you can't really be fair and attack it. P0M 16:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Ingham has lots of EE articles to his credit, so don't take my interpretation of what he said in that article as a valid reading. A Cal Tech (I think it was) grad student in physics told me it was right. My main problem is that I couldn't understand what Ingham was trying to say, so for me it wasn't even wrong. What amazes me is that people like Heisenberg, Bohr, Reimann, et al. can write such clear English and they are not even native speakers. Messiah is also beautifully clear, but the credit for the English version goes to his translator.

I think I am happy for his article, however, since it got me thinking about some things. Physics instruction pre-1960 did not get into QM very much at the first year level. But, come to think of it, one of my housemates ran the experiment that shattered Stanford's new ruby laser into a gazillion pieces when he threw the power switch, so I guess they were doing some cutting edge stuff. I think he said the crystal cost $800, which was more like $8000 in today's money. Fortunately, they did not charge him for the damage. I guess he didn't wire the gadget himself.

Have you ever tried fabricating your own double-slit apparatus? Greene suggests making two scratches on flashed photographic negative film, but I couldn't get that to work. I glued small nails head to toe and let the heads create the gap between them. That method worked pretty well, but I would rather have something black. The shiny nails can reflect the laser light back into the eyes of the experimenter, which is not a good thing to have happen. I'm thinking that the very stiff fibers used in the coarsest kind of push broom might be both black and sufficiently regular to make a good grid. (I am the kind of person who would rather have the real thing than a drawing.) P0M 19:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Breakdown layman explanation of Ingham article

Philosophical interpretation of classical physics is used here to mean the consideration of the probabilities arising in quantum mechanical experiments from the point of view that quantum mechanics is reality and does not require further philosophical interpretation.

The "reality" of classical mechanics predicts determinism. Determinism violates free will. Classical mechanics was therefore divided by Kant into two realities. One is the universe as it actually is and the other is the theories we make about the universe in simple models. This sentence is saying that QM doesn't need Kant's division of realities. This argues that QM is reality in that it shows the universe exists in probabilities and that classical mechanics trying to pinpoint exact locations instead of probabilities makes for an awkward representation of the universe in which probabilities are intrisic properties of the universe and exact locations are not. (I still think this is opinion. I'm just saying what this says and many agree with this that the universe has intrinsic imprecision therefore QM is fundamental.)

This subject is covered in the early chapters of quantum mechanics texts under headings such as "Uncertainty Relations and the Measurement Process".

Heisenberg uncertainty principle says that a particle does not have an exact position and an exact momentum at the same time. The fact that one cannot measure it is a corollary. Though quantum mechanics may not be the ultimate reality, it is much more real and "physical" than classical mechanics and classical electromagnetism.

Again uncertainty principle fundamental to universe therefore "real" in the sense of actual state of universe as opposed to general relativity that predicts localization of particles and absolute position.

The correspondence principle says that these are approximations to quantum mechanics.

To illustrate, Newtonian mechanics is an approximation of general relativity at low speeds. This is saying general relativity itself is like Newtonian mechanics compared to QM.

If there is a future theory that replaces quantum mechanics, it will have a "super correspondence principle" that it reduces to quantum mechanics in cases such as atoms and chemistry.

This is saying there would be a unified theory of "supersymmetry" which has been in current research for over 20 years to try to unify QM with general relativity which would make GR classical and in a sense obsolete, but only an approximation at macro levels.

In the measurement process, new particles, such as light are brought in to perform the measurement. If, at first, these measuring particles are described quantum mechanically, the description remains deterministic and no probabilities arise. However to get the information into a notebook or (non-quantum) computer, it must be brought to the human scale where maintaining phase coherence is impossible. Because the classical approximation does not conform to the uncertainty principle, it contains information that the quantum system, which does conform, cannot supply.

[Actually new research may be able to use QM phase coherence (involving quantum entanglement).] However, this is saying that macro world measurements supply information of exact location that QM cannot supply so they are in a sense fictitious since QM is fundamental.

This (non-physical) information is generated randomly.

Since the exact position of a particle is unknown in QM, then in the macro world when exact positions are used, they are actually randomly selected locations for the particle since there is no real exact location but a collection of locations and choosing one over the other is random.

In addition phase information in the quantum description cannot be represented classically, and is lost.

The probability distribution is lost when selecting a single location therefore information is lost because you lose all the other points of the probability distribution.

Messiah's example is measuring the position of an electron with light. If the light's wave function is not know and included in the system wave function, the predictions are of probabilities, because the light photons exchange unknown amounts of momentum with the electron.

Heisenberg's microscope.

Even though we have all grown up after the discovery of quantum mechanics, the orientation that classical physics is primary has persisted for several reasons. As often noted, the basic reason is that classical physics is a refinement of our every day life perceptions, while quantum mechanics could only be discovered with the tools of physics. If one thinks of himself as a wave, he will never get his feet on the ground when he tries to get up in the morning. Even though we grow up hearing the term "quantum mechanics", we don't really see it until we learn differential equations, and by that time we are used to thinking in classical terms. The Copenhagen interpretation was formulated while quantum mechanics was new and no one was used to it, so it describes quantum mechanics in terms of classical physics in a way that is adequate for practical purposes, but it does not go so far as to call quantum mechanics primary and classical physics an approximation to it that contains meaningless information.

All of this is just to say that if we learned QM first before classical physics we would realize it was more the reality of the universe.

Not accepting quantum mechanics was made respectable by Albert Einstein. He bears a relation to quantum mechanics similar to Isaac Newton's relation to the wave theory of light or that of the last great alchemists to chemistry. He helped discover it but never really believed it.

Einstein believed in absolute position of a particle as universal reality. This says that has stopped QM from being accepted as fundamental.

My notes: If and only if, the uncertainty principle is real, then yes this article is right that QM is the ultimate reality. Many physicists besides Einstein believe there are problems with the uncertainty principle though. But since QM is currently mainstream physics at the quantum level, then QM is the ultimate reality (unless it is later disproved). Therefore, I think this article is too dogmatic since I personally believe that science continually evolves and one day QM will become "classical" and obsolete. Anyway, many would disagree with me. Here we get into philosophy and opinion. Hope this is helpful.--Voyajer 20:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ultimate fate of the universe

Hello. I've noticed you've been editing ultimate fate of the universe. Generally, it's a good idea to use the "preview" button and only save once you're done, as opposed to making a large number of small edits, as this makes it hard for people to read the article history. Also, you might want to discuss proposed changes to articles on their talk pages before implementing them in the future, though I don't see any serious problems with the version of the article you've put forward on a brief reading of it. --Christopher Thomas 05:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intensity

Re: the reference you added to intensity. No, most of the information was not taken from that source. That source took most of its information from Wikipedia. Note the credit in a footnote at the end.--Srleffler 17:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where are you?

You may want to check out the Basics of QM article. Discussing changes with Dr. Ingham before he makes them may be better in the long run. P0M 21:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zeeman image =

Image:Zeeman.gif You state that this picture is from 1897, and that copyright has expired, and no source is mentioned. I think that is incorrect; the picture is more recent than that; probably around 1920/1921, and hence copyright has not expired. I believe that your image is cropped from the original that is available on the website of Museum Boerhaave in Leiden; see http://www.museumboerhaave.nl/contact/pers2a.html and http://www.museumboerhaave.nl/contact/persfotos_einstein/EinsteinZeemanEhrenfest.jpg The website explicitely states that '(vrij beschikbaar voor publicatie)' ='(freely available for publication)', so you are OK, but I think you should fix the ecknowledment and the licencing accordingly. Also, image quality of the original may be better than this processed image. JdH 18:20, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About philologists working in physics

Hello, Voyajer. It seems you are a widely educated person... And you know philology better than physics... Please, think better, when you edit the UNcertainty principle. -- Rambler.

[edit] Ralph Kronig or Enrico Fermi?

Dear Voyager, would you be so kind to look at Image_talk:Ehrenfeststudents.jpg? I would like to have your input to help resolve this riddle. Thanks, JdH 17:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Helium atom with charge-smaller.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Helium atom with charge-smaller.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or ask them at the Image legality questions page. Thank you. Shyam ^(T/C) 16:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle Graph.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded, Image:Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle Graph.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

—ScienceApologist 02:15, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Note: this was done as per discussion on Talk:Uncertainty principle. --ScienceApologist 02:22, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Hi, just like to say thanks for adding so much data, I'm personally only in my first week of chemistry at university but All the uncertanty principle stuff popped up last lecture and I like to read heavily around stuff, I found it a good read but I'd also appreciate it if i could ask a few questions (On IRC,MSN or here if you want) about the material, dont worry i'm not throwing a PhD in your face and saying your wrong just would like some clarification

Thanks Adam

[edit] Prod

[edit] Quantum mechanics, philosophy and controversy

I have added a "{{prod}}" template to the article Quantum mechanics, philosophy and controversy, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but I don't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and I've explained why in the deletion notice (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. linas 00:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fermion-Boson fate of the universe

I see you created this article last year. As far as I can see, the paper allegedly describing this theory (by "Hunt", apparently), has never been published, or even placed on the arxiv preprint server. Of course, with only a last name and a very common one at that, it is hard to be sure. Please give a valid citation, or really this article should be deleted as non-notable. PaddyLeahy 14:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Since you havn't been active since May I went ahead and prodded it:

[edit] Fermion-boson fate of universe theory

A {{prod}} template has been added to the article Fermion-boson fate of universe theory, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you endorse deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please tag it with {{db-author}}. PaddyLeahy 14:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of Charles Schreyvogel

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Charles Schreyvogel, by Wikipedical (talk · contribs), another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Charles Schreyvogel seems to be about a person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not assert the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable.

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Charles Schreyvogel, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. --Android Mouse Bot 2 12:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Electron magnetic dipole moment

Could you do something about this?

Jcwf (talk) 23:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summary

Hello. Please don't forget to provide an edit summary. Thanks, and happy editing.

Bob talk 18:49, 6 February 2008 (UTC)