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Stroll Title A Stroll Through Physics David L. Peterson Dedicated to My Family: Faye, Shayna, Lisa And to Mike Jones [Dr. R. Michael Jones, Boulder] For four decades of great physics discussions. Dave Peterson, 4350 Drew Circle, Boulder, Colorado, 80305 Email: [email protected] Date: May 9, 2014 © David L. Peterson, 2014. CONTENTS: May 9, 2014, dp “A Stroll Through Physics.pdf’’ NEW REPORTS > 2010 [LaTeX]: GENERAL RELATIVITY/COSMOLOGY: ``Graphical Representation of Radial Coordinates in Cosmology, '' DP, 10 January, 2011, 6 pages. (Graphical Representation.txt, from 1979.). ``Decomposition of the Perihelion Shift of General Relativity,” DP, 31 Jan 2011, 13 pages. (PN_Decomp.txt) ``The Radius of the Universe,” 27 February, 2011, DP, 9 pages. (Radius Universe.txt) ``Cosmological Distances,'' 21 April, 2011, DP, 17 pages, (10/5/11, Cosmology_1.tex). ``Comments on Inflation,'' DP, 11/10/2011, 9 pgs. ``Hawking Radiation,'' 9/6/13. 12 pgs, ``Recent Results in Astrophysics,'', 8/28/13.(CMB, AMS, light, galaxy, WDM, Fermi Bubbles). 10 pgs PARTICLES/QUANTUM: ``The Last Decade in Experimental Particle Physics'' updated to 2/9/12, 11 pgs. ``Rotations of Base States,'' DP, 11/20 – 12/15/11 5 pgs. ``The Fine Structure Constant,'' DP 11/20/2011, 6 pgs. ``Electron Spin and SU(2),'' 9/26/12, 15 pgs. (Spin.txt). ``Explaining S Orbitals and bonding,'' DP, 6/24/2012.pdf to 3/6/13. 11 pgs. ``Test of Quantum Entanglement—Aspect Experiment,'' 21 June, 2011, 9 pages (word doc), to 6/26/11. ``Beneath Quantum Mechanics,'' DP 15 March, 2011, 42 pages. to 7/12. (Underlying QM.txt) ``WaveFunction Sub‐Quantal Information,'' 11/20/13‐3/24/14, 32 pages. ``Gauge Theory for Electromagnetism,” DP, November 6, 2011, ‐ 12/22/11 . 26 pages, ``Five Dimensional View of Electricity and Magnetism,'' 9/15/05, 2010, 8 pgs. ``Circle Models in Modern Physics,'' 3/6/2012, 10 pgs. `` Special Topics'', water waves, matter wave index 8/21/12. OLDER WORK: (Appendix/Optional ~ 50 pages). ``Simple Mnemonic Device for Nuclear Shell Filling,’’ 27 Sept. 1968 (for Am.J.P). ``An Interesting Function’’ (to teaching journal). 1983, ρ = ϵE1⋅ E2 . ``General Relativity for Pedestrians,’’ First order approximation, 1974, DP. THE GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY, sample pages and listed contents from a proto‐manuscript of 1979. [240 pages]. Dave Peterson. ``Consistency of a Mechanism for Mach’s Principle,’’ 1969. Sample: ``An Analogy between the Linearized theory of General Relativity and Electromagnetism,’’ August 1976. ``Einstein’s Formula for Mach’s Principle,’’ 1977 Career Highlights Resume of Engineering Experience. List of Company Publications and Citations (Storage Technology Corporation, STK). Sample First Pages of Key STK Publications [D.L. Peterson]: `Long Spin Disk Lube Migration,’ 1992; And `Part II’, 1996; IEEE. `Disk Surface Interferometry,’ `Sputtering Through Offset Mask for Disk Acceleration Standards,’ 1993; `Laser Scribing on Magnetic Disc,’ 1981, Computer Design. `Error Theory for Laser Disk Standards,’ 1984, IEEE. `Controlling Magnetic Contamination in the Disk Drive Industry,’ 1993, ` Sample US Patent #4, Tape Backhitch Time. 2006 ` Power Laws in Large Shop DASD I/O Activity.’ 95 `Fractal Patterns in DASD I/O Traffic,’ [voted Best Paper, CMG96] `Data Center I/O Patterns and Power Laws,’’ CMG’96 `DASD Subsystem Cache Statistics,’ 1997. `New Perspectives in DASD Subsystem Cache Performance,’ 97 `Power Laws in DASD I/O Activity and Cache,’ 97 Not Shown: STK Symposium: `Tape Track Mis‐registration Modeling (TMR),’ ‘99 `Buffer Design for Future Tape Drives,’ ‘01 `Modeling for Operating Points of Proposed Tape Drives,’ ‘01 `Tape Track Distortion,’ 2000 `Modeling of Tape Errors and ECC Effectiveness.’ ‘99 `Complexity in Computer Shops.’ Syllabus: CU Division of Continuing Education, Independent Study, Boulder. General Physics Phys. 201‐4, Phys. 202‐4 © 1972‐1977. Physics For the Life Sciences, 201‐L‐4, David L. Peterson, © 1975. ``Elastic Scattering of 28 MeV Protons from Deuterium,’’ NSF Summer Research Project, David L. Peterson, 57 pgs, 1965. A STROLL THROUGH PHYSICS DAVID L. PETERSON Abstract. The following is a brief summary and a few highlights of my discoveries and thoughts on the workings of Nature along with some comments about a detour that we are all obliged to make to exist in the practical world. Although difficult, it is my view that physics offers the best way to know the basic fundamentals of Nature. It is uplifting and provides natural substance and purpose for everyday existence. Although some of the work here is original, my primary interest is in presenting modern physics (particles and fields) at an intermediate level between mathematical rigor and heuristic talk. We wish to understand physics clearly, but fundamental material is difficult to find in texts or even in journals. \We shall never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born." [Albert Einstein] \I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." [Isaac Newton] \The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life above the level of farce." [Steven Weinberg] 1. Background I love physics! It covers an incredible range from smallest to biggest − from elementary particles to hadrons to nuclei to atoms and all the way up to the universe as a whole (and some believe even beyond that). It tries to explain everything from the most basic fundamental principles of Nature. It uncovers ever more reliable truths with its dovetailing of theory and experiments. It reveals an amazing mind-boggling reality that pushes our imaginations to greater and greater heights with each new generation. I love its history! I want to experience and re-live those greatest \Ah-Hah!" moments when new theories and discoveries fell into place. I love sharing and teaching those beautiful ideas I treasure most. I crave keeping up with the latest developments in physics and much of science in general. Date: December 23, 2011. email: [email protected]. Paper updated to 7 May 2014. 1 2 DAVID L. PETERSON I can't get enough of the unexpected ways that the broad world makes sense. I've done this pretty much my whole life. The following is a brief sketch of what I've learned − my \stroll through physics." I was raised in a small town in south-east Kansas named \Parsons" and noted for its railroads and wheat. My interest in science came from finding an unused Gilbert chemistry set in a neighbor's back-alley trash-can and doing all of the experiments in its guide-book. Chemical reactions were so fascinating that I would then sneak upstairs from the children's library into the adult portion of our town's big Carnegie Library to go through chemistry books. My after-school job enabled me to set up a well stocked chemistry lab in my folks garage where I could experiment to my heart's content, make my own rockets, and perform electrical experiments. Parsons was also blessed with its reptile life as a merging of north- east-south and west varieties. Everyday nature walks would usually yield a new short-term pet snake, lizard or turtle; and I ended up having over a hundred different kind of snakes for pets. Going through the local scouting program also encouraged nature studies; and I eventually became an Eagle Scout. I also built a 6-inch reflecting telescope and often looked at the stars and planets at night. As Albert Einstein once said,\There was this huge world out there, independent of us human beings and standing before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partly accessible to our inspection and thought. The contemplation of that world beckoned like a liberation." When I was twelve while vacationing in Montana, I found a life-changing book for sale called, The World as I see It, by Einstein. I had no idea at that time that adult humans could be wise and soon became a convert to physics. I then went through the popular sci- ence encyclopedia and a sourcebook on atomic energy. A high-school course on chemistry somehow dampened my interest in that field which wasn't rekindled until I could again do free-style experimentation for manufacturing problems when I became an engineer later in life. I was also head of a physics club in high school and got to talk about relativity. My folks moved to Colorado when I was fifteen, and I enrolled at the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1960 when I was seventeen with a major in Engineering Physics and an initial goal of doing nuclear physics. The closest I got to that goal was two summer NSF grants at the CU Cyclotron doing elastic scattering of 28 MeV protons from a deuterium gas target. The result was wiggly plots of differential cross sections showing that quantum mechanics was at work rather than classical or electrostatic scatterings. After that, my interest was drifting towards \elementary" particle physics as more glamorous, fundamental and mys- terious. My favorite undergraduate course was Leighton's Principles of Modern Physics for seniors and taught by Rodman Smythe. He was tall and thin and wore baggy white shirts, and I started wearing baggy white shirts too. Graduate training continued again at the University of Colorado with all of the standard courses: electrodynamics, mechanics, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, spectra, mathematical physics, advanced quantum, nuclear physics, ... but also general relativity and biophysics. I finally got to sample particle physics with a summer program on neutrino A STROLL THROUGH PHYSICS 3 scattering at the Argonne National Labs 12.5 GeV accelerator (ZGS) near Chicago and also studied \pions on propane" at CU Boulder under Leona Marshall Libby using some old scattering photo-film-tapes from Jack Steinburger .
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