Physics-defying: Cheap power from water

[Penthesilea]

doesn't work

don't wanna be the guy that does whooosh and gets whoooshed but whooosh?

[Woozie]

how likely do you consider quark stars? (not strange quark stars but just quark stars) and what are your thoughts on SN 2006gy (if you've been following it at all)

I'm not sure where I stand on the issue of quark stars. I've heard that some scientist believe that they can exist on the inside of a neutron star, but I haven't studied it enough to be able to draw an opinion on the matter in one way or another.

Also, I know almost nothing about SN 2006gy. Wasn't that a really bright supernova that occurred a while ago?

[Amele]

I'm not sure where I stand on the issue of quark stars. I've heard that some scientist believe that they can exist on the inside of a neutron star, but I haven't studied it enough to be able to draw an opinion on the matter in one way or another.

Also, I know almost nothing about SN 2006gy. Wasn't that a really bright supernova that occurred a while ago?

monstrous gamma burst too (yes it was very bright) was a Supernova in 2006 obviously. (I don't recall what gy stands for offhand) - some physicists in Canada proposed that it matched the expected output from a neutron star degenerating into a quark star, but obviously nothing conclusive has come out yet.

mostly just wondered if you might know more than I did about it, since I just do this stuff as a hobby (I'm an engineer and not a physicist)

[Kimiko]

Yeah, energy states lower than ground just doesn't make sense to me. I would have to see the mathematics to see why he's claiming that it's even possible for something to be lower than ground state. Every time there's a mathematical state lower than ground state, the system usually can be shown to have a zero percent probability of ever being found in such a state.

Now, the hydrogen atom DOES have a degenerate ground state, but that just means there's multiple states with the same energy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/3/5...daec9585b2.png

The lowest energy level is clearly corresponding to n=1. This is because n is restricted to be a non-negative integer (this can be deduced directly from the Schrodinger equation after taking into account boundary conditions). Obviously n can't be equal to 0. One reason is because there are n's in th denominator, and the other reason is because the energy depends on n. If n is zero, the atom has no energy (which would violate the laws of physics).

TC;DC (Too Complex;Didn't Compute)