Anyone with an interest in theoretical physics or mathematics?

[jmc2000]

I have a passion for the physics of classical electrodynamics. This involves studying Lagrangians, Hamiltonians, The Principle of Least Action, Special Relativity, Energy-Stress Tensors etc.

I've never come across anyone within electronics interested in this stuff, despite many great physicists such as Paul Dirac having a degree in electrical engineering. So, are there any electronic engineering guys here with a passion for theoretical physics, perhaps in other areas? If not, maybe you have a hobby in mathematics?

Cheers,

Larry.

[madshaman]

Well, there's me, but I'm not an EE, just a hobbyist.  Also, I have an *interest*, not much knowledge.  I'm just now teaching myself the mathematical foundations for quantum physics (Dirac notation, bra/ket vectors), with everything else I do, I'm plodding through the text I have pretty slowly.

[ee851]

I am an EE with a great interest in both classical and quantum electrodynamics.    I am also interested in seeing the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution derived from Boltzmann's kinetic theory of gases.    I am also interested in plasma dynamics.

I feel privileged that the fifth phase of matter was first created on Earth during my lifetime.

[JuKu]

Quantum mechanics is the most fascinating thing I know, with cosmology and golf close behind.

[dexters_lab]

Love learning about anything related to physics and the quantum world including reading biogs of some of the big names in the field. Also read many books on alternative theories like string. Have plenty of hard science books on the shelf at home and in the kindle account.

My understanding is enough to get me through but fall apart on the maths side.

Electronics is just a hobby

[AlphZeta]

I have a passion for the physics of classical electrodynamics. This involves studying Lagrangians, Hamiltonians, The Principle of Least Action, Special Relativity, Energy-Stress Tensors etc.

I've never come across anyone within electronics interested in this stuff, despite many great physicists such as Paul Dirac having a degree in electrical engineering. So, are there any electronic engineering guys here with a passion for theoretical physics, perhaps in other areas? If not, maybe you have a hobby in mathematics?

Ahh that brought back memories. I actually studied Electrodynamics while in college, and the graduate Electrical Engineering studies were mostly math (stochastic signal processing etc) and yes it is very fascinating stuff. A lot of the classic problems (e.g. dipole radiation, etc) can be described by Maxwell equations... In reality though, unless you are a researcher, it is very hard to find people who had significant exposure in these fields.

In practice, a lot of the difficult mathematical problems (e.g. field of an antenna or field in a coil) are solved using finite element methods or are approximated because theoretical calculations can be quite difficult if not impossible. So most of the electrical engineers in the field won't bother to calculate the exact band-gap of the semiconductors they are using but to accept it from the datasheet as a fact.

[jpb]

My children find it very funny that I read Maths and Physics books for my bedtime reading! (None of them have any interest in science sadly.) I've sometimes wondered whether I should have done physics or maths for my first degree - I did engineering because I was fascinated by electronics but then I moved into device physics before going back to university to do computer science after electronics seemed to be dieing in the UK (I was in the field of GaAs MMICs) with companies such as Ferranti, Plessey, GEC (who I worked for), BT research, Thorn EMI research and so on all disappearing or cutting right back (in the case of BT), DERA (the government research place) was privatized as QinetiQ.

Things have now come full circle - I do maths/computer science for a living (research into automated theorem proving) and am back doing electronics as a hobby. I still do a bit of quantum stuff as I tutor undergraduates in quantum computation.

It is nice being interested in science/engineering/maths as you can combine work and fun though, in the UK at least, you'll not earn much money from it unless you stop being technical and become managerial or else successfully start your own business.

[andyturk]

I do maths/computer science for a living (research into automated theorem proving) ...

Are folks still using Prolog for those kinds of things? I started my software career with the LP crowd in the mid '80s.

[jpb]

I do maths/computer science for a living (research into automated theorem proving) ...

Are folks still using Prolog for those kinds of things? I started my software career with the LP crowd in the mid '80s.

The prover I work on is programmed in SML, a bit of a learning curve for me whose background was FORTRAN and c. I spent some time teaching Prolog - it is fun especially when you use it backwards (eg give the string concatenation function an output string and it finds all the pairs of substrings). There was a very small theorem prover written in Prolog called Lean TAP by
Beckert and Posegga in 1994:

the entire code is here:

prove((A,B),UnExp,Lits,FreeV,VarLim) :- !,
prove(A,[B|UnExp],Lits,FreeV,VarLim).
prove((A;B),UnExp,Lits,FreeV,VarLim) :- !,
prove(A,UnExp,Lits,FreeV,VarLim),
prove(B,UnExp,Lits,FreeV,VarLim).
prove(all(X,Fml),UnExp,Lits,FreeV,VarLim) :- !,
\+ length(FreeV,VarLim),
copy_term((X,Fml,FreeV),(X1,Fml1,FreeV)),
append(UnExp,[all(X,Fml)],UnExp1),
prove(Fml1,UnExp1,Lits,[X1|FreeV],VarLim).
prove(Lit,_,[L|Lits],_,_) :-
(Lit = -Neg; -Lit = Neg) ->
(unify(Neg,L); prove(Lit,[],Lits,_,_)).
prove(Lit,[Next|UnExp],Lits,FreeV,VarLim) :-
prove(Next,UnExp,[Lit|Lits],FreeV,VarLim).

Don't ask me to explain its workings! Most of the fast first-order-logic theorem provers I've worked with have been written in C for speed and to allow complex indexing techniques to be used.

[Six]

I have a great interest in astrophysics and astronomy.... and what scientist or engineer isn't fascinated by quantum theory! I seriously considered following a path in avionics/ aerospace as I used to work in the aviation industry when I was younger.... but my first love is audio electronics and always will be. Anything else is purely for fun. The Electric Universe Theory is really getting my attention at the moment. I love seeing the underdog proved right after being pushed out of the mainstream!

Of course maths is still the most beautiful of the sciences IMO. Without that none of the above would exist

[TerraHertz]

I feel privileged that the fifth phase of matter was first created on Earth during my lifetime.

You must be quite old then, as arc welding has been around for a while. 
Edit: Oops! See what I mean about my maths? Fifth state you said, not fourth. ie Bose-Einstein condensate, not plasma.

But I know what you mean. I consider myself very lucky to have been able to get an arc welder when I was around 10. Plasma is a fun thing to play with!

And to Six: Yay! Someone else who enjoys the Electric Universe theory. I find it fascinating, and 'feels very right'. I have a collection of links and articles, if you want.

I too have a strong interest in fundamental physics, but sadly my mathematical abilities are not up to the challenge.

[Gall]

I am a former physicist (M.S. in theoretical physics).

[4to20Milliamps]

A lot of things in this world fascinate me, anyone up for a good physics riddle?

probably not  but if you are:

what do all of these things have in common?

water

a pendulum

emerald

mercury

[Six]

And to Six: Yay! Someone else who enjoys the Electric Universe theory. I find it fascinating, and 'feels very right'. I have a collection of links and articles, if you want.

Yes please. That would be brilliant!

[mrflibble]

A lot of things in this world fascinate me, anyone up for a good physics riddle?

probably not  but if you are:

what do all of these things have in common?

water

a pendulum

emerald

mercury

They all contain the letter R? They are all things? You can make a clock out of them? I give up!

[mrflibble]

I have a passion for the physics of classical electrodynamics. This involves studying Lagrangians, Hamiltonians, The Principle of Least Action, Special Relativity, Energy-Stress Tensors etc.

All of the above are fun! XD

Also, you might find this one interesting: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/short-algorithm-long-range-consequences-0301.html

I'm still looking for a project excuse to play around with it.

[TerraHertz]

And to Six: Yay! Someone else who enjoys the Electric Universe theory. I find it fascinating, and 'feels very right'. I have a collection of links and articles, if you want.

Yes please. That would be brilliant!

OK. List of links as textfile here: http://everist.org/archives/links/!_Electric_Universe_links.txt
My entire collection of Electric Universe articles as 216MB zip file, here:
   http://everist.org/archives/physics/Elec_Univ_all.zip
Edit: upload complete.
Most of the bulk is in /papers/Aurora_Polaris_book_162MB_pdf

Files with .mht suffix are Opera 'save web page as single file' format.

I'll probably delete the zip file from the server in a week or two.

[Six]

Brilliant! Thank you!

[lemmegraphdat]

A lot of things in this world fascinate me, anyone up for a good physics riddle?

probably not  but if you are:

what do all of these things have in common?

water

a pendulum

emerald

mercury

All of them are right next to each other there on the page.

[madshaman]

A lot of things in this world fascinate me, anyone up for a good physics riddle?

probably not  but if you are:

what do all of these things have in common?

water

a pendulum

emerald

mercury

All of them are right next to each other there on the page.

I got stumped too, the clock thing is feasible and was my only thought, but although emeralds could be used for crystal pivots, it's usually rubies.  I'm not actually aware of any special properties that emeralds have and the interwebs didn't help.

[4to20Milliamps]

There is an obscure relationship, it used to be an ancient standard, now lost in time.