toc.md

Kinematics/General Physics

KGP1 - Why is $c$/$\hbar$/$k_B$/(other fundamental constant) the value it is? What would happen if it was different?

Classical Mechanics

CM1 - Why is my physics teacher so anal about centripetal vs centrifugal? Is the centrifugal force "fictitious"?

CM2 - What would happen if you were struck by a primordial ($10^{14} ; \mathrm{kg}$) black hole at orbital speed ($8 , \mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}$)?

Thermodynamics

TD1 - How are negative temperature possible? Why are they hotter than any positive temperature? How were they acheived?

Celestial/Orbital Mechanics

OM1 - How do gravity assists/slingshots work?

OM2 - Why won't/didn't New Horizons stop at Pluto and instead had to fly by?

Fluid Mechanics

Classical Electrodynamics

CED1 - What is the Maxwell stress tensor $\mathbf{\sigma}$ and how does it work?

CED2 - Why is current produced to a wire when moving a magnet close to it?

Analytical Mechanics

AM1 - Why are $q(t)$ and $\dot q(t)$ treated as indipendent in Lagrangian mechanics? Shouldn't $\dot q(t)$ be viewed as a function(al) of $q(t)$?

Special Relativity

SR1 - In what sense does $E=mc^2$, and what does it mean?

SR2 - if photons are massless, how can $E=mc^2$?

General Relativity

GR1 - How long does a year on Mercury last from Mercury's point of view?

General Quantum Field Theory/Many Body/Relativistic QM

QFT1 - What is "imaginary time"? And what is meant by "Euclidean spacetime"?

Nuclear Physics

Quantum Electrodynamics

QED1 - How does $1+2+3+\ldots=-1/12$/$\zeta$-regularization enter in the Casimir effect?

Particle Physics/High Energy Physics

HEP1 - Why are photons massless?

HEP2 - Why do photons not acquire a mass through the Higgs mechanism?

HEP3 - Why do photons not acquire a mass through quantum corrections/interaction with virtual particles? What is charge renormalization?

HEP4 - Is the electron a point particle, or an extended object? How sure are we of that?

Quantum Gravity/String Theory

QG1 - If the Planck length/Planck time is the smallest measurable/possible length/time, then...?

QG2 - since the electron is a point mass, is it a black hole?

List of well-known crackpots

Aether Wave Theory / Zephir

Imagining the Tenth Dimension / Rob Bryanton

The Stand-Up Physicists / Doug Sweetser

Nassim Haramein / Resonance Project / Schwarzschild proton / Haramein-Rauscher metric

An exceptionally simple theory of everything / $E_8$ Theory / Garret Lisi

EM drive / Roger Shawyer / NASA "warp" drive