Other Physics Commons^™

Question 1: Falling On A Bmw; Question 2: Recycling Contact Lenses, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Solutions For Fermi Questions, January 2022: Question 1: Snow Volume; Question 2: Longbow Arrow Velocity, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Solutions For Fermi Questions, September 2021: Question 1: Cell Phone Gold, Question 2: Food For Thought, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

Answers to the questions: "How much gold is in a cell phone? Is it worth mining cell phones for gold?"

Solutions For Femi Questions, October 2021: Rising Water Level: Popping Many Pimples, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

[Introduction] How much would sea levels rise if everyone jumped in the ocean? (Thanks to Bob Friedhoffer for suggesting the problem.)

To estimate this, we need to know the number of people, the average volume of a person, and the area of the oceans. This is the kind of estimation problem where the inputs are relatively well known, and we are calculating the answer to see its order of magnitude.

There are about 7 X 10⁹ people in the world. If each person has a mass of 100 kg (in round numbers), then they each have a volume …

Question 1: Chess Moves; Question 2: Cat Litter, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

How many chess moves are made by Americans each year?

How much cat litter did Americans scoop last year?

Recent Developments In The Pyscf Program Package, Qiming Sun, Xing Zhang, Samragni Banerjee, Peng Bao, Marc Barbry, Nick S. Blunt, Nikolay A. Bogdanov, George H. Booth, Jia Chen, Zhi-Hao Cui, Janus J. Eriksen, Yang Gao, Sheng Gun, Jan Hermann, Matthew R. Hermes, Kevin Koh, Peter Koval, Susi Lehtola, Zhendong Li, Junzi Liu, Narbe Mardirossian, James D. Mcclain, Mario Motta, Bastien Mussard, Hung Q. Pham, Artem Pulkin, Wirawan Purwanto, Paul J. Robinson, Enrico Ronca, Elvira R. Sayfutyarova, Maximillian Scheurer, Henry F. Schurkus, James E.T. Smith, Chong Sun, Shi-Ning Sun, Shiv Upadhyay, Lucas K. Wagner, Xiao Wang, Alec White, James Daniel Whitfield, Mark J. Williamson, Sebastian Wouters, Jun Yang, Jason M. Yu, Tianyu Zhu, Timothy C. Berkelbach, Sandeep Sharma, Alexander Yu Sokolov, Garnet Kin-Lic Chan

University Administration Publications

PySCF is a Python-based general-purpose electronic structure platform that supports first-principles simulations of molecules and solids as well as accelerates the development of new methodology and complex computational workflows. This paper explains the design and philosophy behind PySCF that enables it to meet these twin objectives. With several case studies, we show how users can easily implement their own methods using PySCF as a development environment. We then summarize the capabilities of PySCF for molecular and solid-state simulations. Finally, we describe the growing ecosystem of projects that use PySCF across the domains of quantum chemistry, materials science, machine learning, and …

Question 1: Coffee Consumption; Question 2: Active Volcanoes, Lawrence Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

This article presents questions related to Fermi which include how much coffee U.S. scientists consume daily, and how many active volcanoes there are in the world.

Announcement: In Memory Of Yong Ho Chin, Michael Thoennessen, Debbie Brodbar, Brant Johnson, Jean Delayen, Dan Kulp, Frank Zimmermann, Maria Poko

Physics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Solutions For Fermi Questions, May 2019: Question 1: Graduation Speeches; Question 2: Fan Propulsion, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

[Introduction] How many person-hoursare spent listening to graduation speeches each year? How long is this in lifetimes?

Answer: Just about everyone graduates high school and goes to their graduation, usually with guests. Only about 30% of Americans (more than 10% and less than 100% graduate college, so we will ignore those graduates. Therefore we need to estimate the number of graduating high school seniors, the number of guests per senior, and the length of the graduation speeches.

Question 1: Iceberg To Los Angeles, Question 2: Lost Luggage, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

How much fuel would it take to tow a large enough iceberg to Los Angeles to provide fresh water for the city for an entire year? (Thanks to John Adam of Old Dominion University and co-author of Guesstimation for suggesting the question.)

U.S.-based airlines lost 1.7 million pieces of luggage in 2016. How tall a mountain will this make? What is the probability an airline will lose our luggage on our next flight? (Thanks to John Adam of Old Dominion University and co-author of Guesstimation for suggesting the question.)

Question 1: Time Texting; Question 2: Opening Doors, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

[Introduction] How much total time do Americans spend texting every year?

Can a typical human open a 20-ton door (swinging on hinges around a vertical axis like a normal room door) with no mechanical assistance?

Question 1: Star Speeds; Question 2: Slurping Gasoline, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

One piece of evidence that the center of our galaxy contains a super-massive black hole came from measuring the speed of a star orbiting that black hole. What is the maximum speed of that star?

If instead of carrying their gas in fuel tanks, cars “slurped up” a stream of gas as they drove, how thick a stream of gas would each car need?

Question 1: "Up" — A Fermi Question About Buoyancy; Question 2: Traffic Jams, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

Is it possible for a house to fly by the uplift of balloons, like in the movie "Up"? (written by R. Allart, A. Cazenave, and A. Müller, University of Geneva)

How much total time do Americans spend waiting in traffic each year? What is the total cost of this time?

Question 1: Kill The K-Cup; Question 2: Water Cooling, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

According to KillTheKCup.org, single-use non-recyclable Keurig K-cups “are killing our planet.” How large is the environmental impact of K-Cups?

How much more cooling do you get from drinking cold rather than room-temperature water on a hot day? How much do you sweat per day when the ambient temperature is about 35 °C (95 °F)?

Question 1: Shaving Time; Question 2: Half-Filling The Gas Tank, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

How much total time does a typical American spend shaving during his or her life? How much total time per year do Americans spend shaving?

How much money can you save by only half-filling your car's gas tank to reduce weight?

Question 1: Google And Pac-Man; Question 2: Magnetic Levitation, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

On the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the video game Pac-Man, Google created a miniature version of the game and placed it as its logo on its home page. How much total time was wasted in the United States playing this game?

(Thanks to Daniel Drill of Old Dominion University for suggesting the question.)

Animal tissue is diamagnetic. How large a magnetic field gradient is needed to levitate frogs or people?

Short-Distance Structure Of Nuclei, D. W. Higinbotham, E. Piasetzky, L. Weinstein, S. A. Wood

Physics Faculty Publications

One of Jefferson Lab's original missions was to further our understanding of the short-distance structure of nuclei, in particular, to understand what happens when two or more nucleons within a nucleus have strongly overlapping wave-functions – a phenomena commonly referred to as short-range correlations. Herein, we review the results of the (e, e'), (e, e'p) and (e, e'pN) reactions that have been used at Jefferson Lab to probe this short-distance structure as well as provide an outlook for future experiments.

Question 1: A Million Monkeys, Er, Humans; Question 2: Deicing New York City, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

Question 1: A Million Monkeys, er, Humans: Americans now seem to communicate more by typing than by speaking. Many of us are also chained to our computers. How many characters (letters, numbers, symbols) do all Americans type or text every year?

Question 2: Deicing New York City: How much deicing compound does New York City use during and after a major snowstorm?

Question 1: Lhc Magnets; Question 2: Lhc Projectile Energy, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

What is the strength of the magnetic field used to keep the protons in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) moving in a circle?

What is the kinetic energy of one lead ion in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)? How does that compare to the kinetic energy of a ping-pong (table tennis) ball?

Pulsed Laser Deposition Of Graphite Counter Electrodes For Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells, Krishna P. Acharya, Himal Khatri, Sylvain Marsillac, Bruno Ullrich, Pavel Anzenbacher, Mikhail Zamkov

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We report on pulsed laser deposition of graphite onto flexible plastic and conductive glass substrates for use as a counter electrode in dye-sensitized solar cells. The efficiency of as-prepared graphite electrodes was tested using CdS-sensitized solar cell architecture resulting in external quantum efficiency comparable to that of conventional platinum counter electrodes. This work highlights the possibility of using pulsed laser deposited graphite as a low-cost alternative to platinum, which could be fabricated both on flexible and rigid substrates.

Erratum: Cross Sections For The 𝛾p -> K*⁰ Σ⁺ Reaction At E𝛾 = 1.7-3.0 Gev (Physical Review C. 75, 042201), M. Amarian, H. Bagdasaryan, S. Bültmann, G. E. Dodge, G. Gavalian, C. E. Hyde-Wright, A. Klein, S. E. Kuhn, F. Sabatié, L. B. Weinstein, Et. Al., The Clas Collaboration

Physics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Erratum: Η' Photoproduction On The Proton For Photon Energies From 1.527 To 2.227 Gev (Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, Pg 062001, 2006), H. Bagdasaryan, M. Bektasoglu, S. L. Careccia, K. V. Dharmawardane, G. E. Dodge, C. E. Hyde-Wright, A. Klein, S. E. Kuhn, L. M. Qin, F. Sabatié, L. B. Weinstein, Et Al., Clas Collaboration

Physics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Publisher's Note: Η Photoproduction On The Proton For Photon Energies From 0.75 To 1.95 Gev [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 222002 (2002)], M. Bektasoglu, K. V. Dharmawardane, G. E. Dodge, C. E. Hyde-Wright, A. Klein, S. E. Kuhn, R. A. Niyazov, S. Stepanyan, L. B. Weinstein, Et Al., Clas Collaboration

Physics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Corrected Article: Exclusive Electroproduction Of ᵠ Mesons At 4.2 Gev [Physical. Rev. C 63, 065205, (2001)], M. Bektasoglu, L. Ciciani, G. E. Dodge, T. A. Forest, C. E. Hyde-Wright, S. E. Kuhn, L. M. Qin, F. Sabatié, L. B. Weinstein, Et Al., The Clas Collaboration

Physics Faculty Publications

We studied the exclusive reaction ep → e' p' ᵠ using the ᵠ →K⁺K^- decay mode. The data were collected using a 4.2 GeV incident electron beam and the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Our experiment covers the range in Q² from 0.7 to 2.2 GeV²and W from 2.0 to 2.6 GeV. Taken together with all previous data, we find a consistent picture of ᵠ production on the proton. Our measurement shows the expected decrease of the t slope with the vector-meson formation time c Δ t …