arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C. J. Efthimiou.
We examine certain features of popular myths regarding ghosts, vampires and zombies as they appear in film and folklore. We use physics to illuminate inconsistencies associated with these myths and to give practical explanation to certain aspects.
The author's method (math-ph/9804010) that uses the Laplace transform to find exact values for a large class of convergent series is extended to trigonometric series.
Motivated by a proposal of Daykin (Problem 71-19*, SIAM Review 13 (1971) 569), we study the wave that propagates along an infinite chain of dominoes and find the limiting speed of the wave in an extreme case.
In this article, we examine specific scenes from popular action and sci-fi movies and show how they blatantly break the laws of physics, all in the name of entertainment, but coincidentally contributing to science illiteracy.
During the past several years the authors have developed a new approach to the teaching of Physical Science, a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. This approach, called `Physics in Films', uses scenes from popular movies to illustrate physical principles and has excited student interest and improved student performance. The analyses of many of the scenes in `Physics in Films' are a direct application of Fermi calculations -- estimates and approximations designed to make solutions of complex and seemingly intractable problems understandable to the student non-specialist. The intent of this paper is to provide instructors with examples they can use to develop skill in recognizing Fermi problems and making Fermi calculations in their own courses.
Brief overview of the `Pseudoscience' flavor of the `Physics in Films' project at the University of Central Florida.
We present a pedagogical description of the inversion of Gamow's tunnelling formula and we compare it with the corresponding classical problem. We also discuss the issue of uniqueness in the solution and the result is compared with that obtained by the method of Gel'fand and Levitan. We hope that the article will be a valuable source to students who have studied classical mechanics and have some familiarity with quantum mechanics.
We propose a unified approach to addition of some physical quantities (among which resistors and capacitors are the most well-known) that are usually encountered in introductory physics such that the formulae required to solve problems are always simply additive. This approach has the advantage of being consistent with the intuition of students. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we propose and solve several problems. We hope that this article can serve as a resource paper for problems on the subject.
National studies conducted over many years show that, while most Americans are interested in science and support federal funding of scientific research, the scientific literacy of the public is very low. Why this situation exists and who is responsible are not easy questions to answer. This paper describes a project aimed at addressing that problem, at least among college students, by re-designing the general education physical science course, common in most colleges and universities, to teach basic physics principles via the physics found in films, particularly the action films popular among today's students. Results of the first year's trial of the `Physics in Films' approach are more than promising, they may be pointing the way to the solution of the problem.
We study the Toda field theory with finite Lie algebras using an extension of the Goulian-Li technique. In this way, we show that, after integrating over the zero mode in the correlation functions of the exponential fields, the resulting correlation function resembles that of a free theory. Furthermore, it is shown that for some ratios of the charges of the exponential fields the four-point correlation functions which contain a degenerate field satisfy the Riemann ordinary differential equation. Using this fact and the crossing symmetry, we derive a set of functional equations for the structure constants of the A_2 Toda field theory.
We propose a unified approach to addition of resistors and capacitors such that the formulae are always simply additive. This approach has the advantage of being consistent with the intuition of the students. To demonstrate our point of view, we re-work some well-known end-of-the-chapter textbook problems and propose some additional new problems.
This document is an introduction to and review of two-dimensional mathematical physics. The reader is introduced to the subject matter primarily through problems, which are presented along with detailed worked solutions. For each chapter, there is a brief summary of important results and ideas that precedes the problems and the solutions. This document can be worked through independently by one wishing to learn this subject; alternatively, this could serve as a companion to a more conventional review article or textbook on the subject. The current release contains Part I, and includes six chapters: 1. Curiosities In 2 Dimensions 2. General Principles Of Conformal Field Theory 3. Correlators In Critical Models 4. Other Models In Conformal Field Theory 5. Construction Of New Models 6. Modular Invariance
The Liouville field theory on Z_N-Riemann surfaces is studied and it is shown that it decomposes into a Liouville field theory on the sphere and N-1 free boson theories. Also, the partition function of the Liouville field theory on the Z_N-Riemann surfaces is expressed as a product of the correlation function for the Liouville vertex operators on the sphere and a number of twisted fields.
In this letter, we continue the work we started at a previous paper and we propose new series of integrable models in quantum field theory. These models are obtained as perturbed models of the minimal conformal field theories on the hyper-elliptic surfaces by particular relevant operators of the untwisted sector. The quantum group symmetry of the models is also discussed.
Using a hybrid approach, based on the recursion relations for shape invariant potentials developed by Das and Huang and a time-dependent tranformation of variables, we derive the propagator for a radial oscillator. Although this is not a new result, we explicitly show that time-dependent tranformations are very beneficial even within the context of time-independent Hamiltonians in quantum mechanics.