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Physics Mysteries
150 questions answered by our physicists
Edita Bromova
There are many types of fusion reactions that release energy when the nuclei of light atoms fuse. Except for the different temperatures required for their ignition, they have different cross-sections and yields which are…
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Edita Bromova
So far, the trend is exactly the opposite, and the new fusion reactors are getting bigger and bigger. It turns out that a larger volume of plasma provides it with better stability and better parameters, thanks to which t…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Plasma refers to a gas consisting of charged particles. Due to the high temperature of the flame, a neutral gas molecule (e.g., O2) can rupture into a free electron and a positive O2 ion and a candle flame can contain pl…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Yes, it can happen, just as it is possible that the lightning does not hit the tree, but rather next to it, or that it does not "choose" the shortest path towards the ground. It is necessary to realize that lightning mov…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
The fact that there is higher pressure in greater depth is not related to compressibility of the fluid but with its weight. Air, unlike water, is compressible and there is also higher pressure at sea level than in the mo…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Whether we eliminate aggressive aliens or giant asteroids in movies, an explosion in space is always a spectacular thing. How would the explosion of an atomic bomb in space vacuum really look like? I am not an expert on…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
I wouldn't say two identical snowflakes can't exist — it's rather unlikely. There are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 ice crystals in a snowflake that randomly coalesce when the snowflake is formed. That's 100,000 times…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
The special theory of relativity shows that it is not possible for any information to spread faster than the speed of light. Thus, the Earth would "learn" of the disappearance of the Sun at the same time that the light f…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Yes, that's right — warmer water rises (that's why there is, for example, a heating spiral at the bottom of a kettle). In addition, this phenomenon works with all fluids (i.e. liquids and gases) ...
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Capillary elevation is responsible for the nutrition of trees (and other plants)… You may think that you will not encounter this phenomenon anywhere else but (like all physics) this phenomenon has a wide use. You…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
I am not a naturalist, so I would rather only physically speculate on this issue. I think it's simple — they don't need to. Evolutionary theory (in my interpretation) shows that the evolution of animal species prefers th…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
It's not that simple — more precisely, the degree of inaccuracy in determining the position and together with speed (momentum) is equal to a very small number (Planck's constant). If the value of the Planck constant was…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
It is fascinating that the same element (carbon) has diametrically different properties only because of the different composition of the crystal lattice. But because there are the same atoms in coal, a pencil lead or a d…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
I have rather brief information about the history of flying but I think that the inspiration was based on the free flying of birds when they do not flap their wings (e.g. still used today by gliders). The principle of gl…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Like sound or waves in water, light is a wave, only in the case of light, it is an electromagnetic wave while sound is a mechanical wave. So if I describe the waves on the water surface, we can imagine the behavior of li…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Unfortunately, I am not a particle physicist, so I hope that I will not be fundamentally wrong in the fact that my answer is: we do not know. More precisely, we do not know and will not know. In our world (in terms of si…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Personally, I wouldn't be afraid that someone could die of a banana overdose. Although the "banana equivalent" is given as an auxiliary unit describing radiation, I do not think that its value reflects the real effect of…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
You correctly describe that the tide is caused by the gravitational force of the Moon. The magnitude of the gravitational force depends, among other things, on the distances of the bodies. Therefore, gravity acts the mos…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
The effect of atmospheric pressure on the boiling temperature can be imagined as water molecules trying to get out of the liquid. The higher the air pressure, the more air molecules are above the water surface and the mo…
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Jaroslav Kores, Ph.D.
Purely theoretically, I can't see a problem with that. The colour of a star depends on its composition and temperature. The sun is yellow precisely because it consists mainly of hydrogen and also partly of helium and its…
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