Ask a Celebrity Physicist

Any burning issues you’d like Stephen Hawking to address? He’s on campus again, and will be giving a lecture Friday where he answers some random questions from the undergraduates. I’ve got until dinnertime to think up clever things.

Comments

  1. william wrote:

    Demand Time Cube debate!

  2. yami wrote:

    We submitted a Time Cube question as one of our allotted three… no word yet on whether or not he’ll deign to answer.

  3. quinn dempsey wrote:

    What is the most important thing to consider when one is thinking about becoming a physicist?
    I need to interview a physicist for a math course on how math relates to a certain field of employment and was hoping to get some input from Mr. Hawkings or any other physicist willing to give me info. Thanks…..quinn

  4. yami wrote:

    You’re, uh, a little late, quinn.

  5. Julian Schecter wrote:

    Hello.
    In 2020, researchers at Stanford University’s Linear Accelerator Center successfully converted energy into matter. This feat was accomplished by using lasers and incredibly strong electromagnetic fields to change ordinary light into matter. The results of this experiment may allow for the development of variety of technological gadgets. One such development could be matter/energy transporters or food replicators that are commonly seen in some of our favorite science fiction programs.
    My question is, if we were to build a transporter that worked by converting people into energy, would they be able to theorically survive the procedure once their energy has been reconverted back into matter, since both are interconvertible?

  6. Yash wrote:

    Hello,
    I am in the UK in my final year of formal education after UNIVERSITY and have aquestion related to the physics of particle accelerators:
    Both LINACS and Cyclotrons accelerate particles!
    And accelerated particles radiate EM waves!
    The latter accelerates them both in speed (since they are approaching “c”) and also since the vector direction is changing - correct so far!?
    They say that particles in cyclotrons are limited to reacing “c” since they radiate synhcrotron radiation - but surely the particles also radiate this radiation when in LINACS - why are linacs not affected so much?
    Does this realte to the Model of a nucleus and that the electron must loose energy and spiral into the nucleus?
    so therefore, like the fixed orbit, does a syncrotron accelerator keep a fixed radius and thus if a fixed radius is kept will synchrotron radiation be no emitted?
    Oh yeah there is also the relativisti increase in mass - but I am not sure if it relates to the synchrotron radiation?
    Sorry if the structuring of the question is awkward, but as you can see I am having trouble grasping this concept?
    Any clarification you could provide would be helpful
    Yash

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