Yasar Safkan: PhysLink.com Expert

  
Yasar Safkan
Ph.D., MIT
Cambridge, MA 		Questions answered
to date:
53

Biography Yasar Safkan graduated from the MIT, with the Ph.D. degree in Nuclear Physics.

Published Answers All answers by Yasar Safkan published at PhysLink.com up to date are listed here:
  1. Do falling objects drop at the same rate (for instance a pen and a bowling ball dropped from the same height) or do they drop at different rates? I know a feather floats down very slowly but I would think a heavy object would fall faster than a light object. Thanks for your help. I have a bet on this one.

  2. How was the speed of light determined and who found it, when? How close was the estimate of 186,000 mps to the 'actual' speed of light?

  3. Would this be perpetual motion:
    1) You make hydrogen from water using energy.
    2) you let the H2 rise through a pipe capturing all its energy.
    3) you burn the H2 in a fuel cell at its highest height.
    4) Then you let the water from the fuel cell run down a pipe capturing all of its energy.
    5) Now all the energy you captured from the H2 rising, the fuel cell burning,and the water falling is used to make more H2.

  4. Are the electrons spinning around the nucleus of an atom travelling faster than the speed of sound?

  5. Is it possible to find the radius of an electron?

  6. How come a drop of water can stay hanging from the ceiling without falling immediately on the floor? How does it stick to the ceiling surface?

  7. Regarding natural units, how can h=c=1, and why is this simplification used?

  8. If the term 'absolute motion' has no meaning, then why do we say that the earth moves around the sun and not vice versa?

  9. Why is there no degree in Kelvin?

  10. Since hydrofluoric acid (HF) will eat through just about anything, in what and how is it stored?

  11. In rotational motion, when the radius is decreased, does velocity increase or decrease?

  12. Suppose 2 sinusoidal waves undergo totally destructive interference. This results in wave with zero amplitude (and hence zero intensity). What happens to the energy associated with wave (1) and wave (2)?

  13. What is escape velocity?

  14. Is there any device that has, for a moment or so, zero momentum and possess kinetic energy?

  15. Why does dispersion take place when light is passed through prism and not through glass slab?

  16. Could a circular space station simulate the Earth's gravity by spinning at a certain velocity? (I have seen something like this in A.C. Clarke's 2001)

  17. Lets just say a huge asteroid hits the earth at the right speed and with the right amount of force and stops it's orbit around the sun. How long would it take for the earth to plummet into the sun?

  18. If both friction and air resistance were eliminated from acting on the swinging pendulum, would gravity act on the pendulum to slow it down and eventually stop?

  19. Why is it easier to accelerate an electron to a speed that is close to the speed of light, compared to accelerating a proton to the same speed?

  20. Say you have a twin, and you go off into space, traveling near the speed of light, when you return, will your twin have aged more?

  21. We talk of positively and negatively charged particles. But what actually is a charge, what is the property of charge caused by?

  22. Photons are Bosons, so why don't they make Bose-Einstein-Condensation?

  23. I heard that an electron moving in a certain orbital is actually perpetual mobile - is this true?

  24. What is the difference between the inertial and gravitational mass?

  25. What is the difference between atomic and nuclear physics?

  26. What causes high tide and low tide and why?

  27. Approximately how many atoms are in a grain of salt?

  28. Why does the stream of water from a faucet become narrower as it falls?

  29. How fast a person must be going in a car to make a red light appear green?

  30. Assume there is an ice cube in a glass of water. When the ice cube melts, will the water level have risen, fallen, or remained the same? Why?

  31. How fast (ie: clockspeed in Hz) can a single processor in a computer be? The highest I've read is 4 GHz. What's the limit?

  32. How many oscillations does a caesium atomic clock make in a day?

  33. There are two persons in a plane which is traveling at a speed greater than the speed of sound. If one of them talks, will the other hear it?

  34. We are having a party at work, we want to use dry ice as an effect, can we put it into our punch and then drink it? Is it safe?

  35. How can the electric potential in the exact center of two equal but opposite charges be zero, but the electric field be non zero?

  36. Why does the passenger side window on my car state 'objects in mirror are closer than they appear?

  37. If nothing can travel faster then the speed of light, how does one explain Cerenkov Radiation?

  38. What are the fundamental particles that make up a nucleus?

  39. If a spacecraft was fitted with a laser would the photons emitted push the craft upwards as in the solar sail or beamed energy propulsion concepts?

  40. What are the differences between jet airplanes and rockets?

  41. What is the most useful type of mathematics for physics?

  42. My son is taking complex numbers in high school, and he is asking 'What are these good for?' I know they are used in electromagnetic calculations, but how?

  43. What is the Andromeda Galaxy distance from the Sun?

  44. Which is larger - a quark or an electron?

  45. If oxygen is needed for fires to burn and hydrogen is a highly explosive gas, why does water not explode when exposed to fire?

  46. Can you boil water without heat? Why and how does it occur?

  47. Why do colors illuminated with moonlight lack color?

  48. Why the law of momentum conservation is not violated when a ball rolls down a hill and gains momentum?

  49. Is the law of conservation of energy violated for a short or long period of time and can it be experimentally observed?

  50. Shortening a guitar string to one-third its initial length will change its natural frequency by what factor?

  51. What is the minimum altitude from the equator needed to view the Earth as a whole?

  52. Is it possible that my computer crashes because of the cosmic radiation?

  53. If you lit a flame in an oxygen atmosphere in space, what direction would the flame burn in?

  54. Einstin believed in determinism but the quantum theory disbanded this idea. Do you believe that determinism will be revitalized by the unified field theory? Why or why not?