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Categories
Category Archives: Physics
Animated Kronig-Penney band structure
In our recent paper, my supervisor and I developed a method for generating the electronic band structure of one-dimensional periodic potentials using matrix mechanics. We used the Kronig-Penney model, which has known analytical solutions, as our benchmark and then extended the … Continue reading
Posted in Physics
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“The Kronig-Penney model extended to arbitrary potentials via numerical matrix mechanics”
The American Journal of Physics just published a paper I wrote with my supervisor, Frank Marsiglio. The link to the gated paper is here, and an older version is available on the ArXiv. The Kronig-Penney model is a first attempt … Continue reading
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The Legendre transformation in physics
In both classical mechanics and in statistical mechanics, at some point while you’re following the derivations, suddenly an expression like “and this is the Legendre transformation” will pop up. Now, in my experience that was it. I was so confused: … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics, Physics
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Book Review: What If?
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe For a taste of what’s in What If?, check out Muroe’s TED Talk on the topic: or check out the actual What If? website. I’ll still be here when … Continue reading
Posted in Physics, Reviews, Science (general)
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Why the Lagrangian is kinetic minus potential energy (at least for gravity)
Warning: This is a higher level post, assuming some familiarity with Lagrangian mechanics and general relativity. When the aspiring physics student is first exposed to Lagrangian mechanics, which differs from Newtonian mechanics in that it focuses on scalars and energies … Continue reading
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Book Review: The Knowledge
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell Imagine there was a mass die-off of human beings, perhaps from some pestilence or a Game of Thrones season premiere party that got way out of hand, but … Continue reading
Posted in Chemistry, Electronics, Energy, Physics, Reviews, Science (general), Technology
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Could we teach general relativity like we teach reading?
A while ago I got into an argument with a friend when I made the assertion “If you can learn how to read, you can learn general relativity.” My point was is that I frankly thought that mastering the intricacies … Continue reading
Posted in General, Mathematics, Physics, Science (general)
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LHC 2015 Run II upgrades
When people refer to particle colliders, it’s often in reference to the beam energies as these numbers are both indicative of what kinds of new particles can be created and because it’s cool. Another less-cited but very important number is … Continue reading
Posted in Physics, Science (general), Technology
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LHC Higgs animations
When a Higgs (or Higgs-like particle) is formed at the LHC it immediately decays, but the particles it decays to can be predicted by theory. The two main experiments, ATLAS and CMS, are designed to look for some of these … Continue reading
Posted in Physics
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Book Review: From X-Rays to Quarks
From X-rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries by Emilio Segre In my review of the chronological prequel* to From X-Rays to Quarks (hereafter FXQ) entitled From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves (hereafter FFR) I mentioned that it was … Continue reading
Scrub Physics 