/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12162345
Mass isn’t mass in space it’s space in space a wave is space moving thru space with space

>>12162346

You.should write textbooks

>>12162346
If this is a satisfying answer to you then I'm sorry for your retardation

>>12162345
In quantum, stuff like photon waves aren't like compression waves they are like probability waves its strange

>>12162367
This is not an answer

>>12162345
Perturbations in a field. If you're looking for a 'thing' or 'stuff,' the field itself is the thing.
It's more analogous to sound in air than waves in water.

>>12162387
So it's just one big thing. Perturbations is the perturbation of some-thing, a field is just a much a designation of an object as a the word particle is. Are there many fields or just one? If there are many, and they are just designations of base units, why not just say particles? If there is one, how is any distinction between things possible? What are you talking about?

>>12162412
>Are there many fields or just one?
Many.
>why not just say particles?
Because a field fundamentally differs from a particle.
>If there is one, how is any distinction between things possible?
The fuck are you on about? You don't seem to have the background to grasp this.
>What are you talking about?
...

>>12162424
>You don't seem to have the background to grasp this.
That should have been clear from the initial question.

>>12162424
>Many.
Really? Does a photon move through multiple fields? Or are their multiple fields for multiple particles?

>>12162424
You have just described a "field" as if this means anything. If it is some-thing, and it is the basis for things, then what difference does it have to the name we give to the some-things aka particles that we think are fundamental. You have not explained this, you just said a different noun.
>Because a field fundamentally differs from a particle.
Aka Because it's just different bro
How is it different? Don't use analogies, don't refer to other works, just tell me, I'm right here.

>>12162433
Muh in group

I just want to know, surely being so wise you can explain it

>>12162439
>How is it different? Don't use analogies, don't refer to other works, just tell me, I'm right here.
You're asking me to teach you a college course in a couple of sentences on 4chan. I'm not Richard Feynman, and I can't describe field tensors in a way that you can process

>>12162456
You can't explain what you know? Isn't this fundamental? Isn't this the base substance/elemental question in physics, and you can't explain it? How am I supposed to learn it? How do I figure it out?

>>12162462
google "field tensors". read. learn.

>>12162462
I could explain it to someone with the appropriate background.
I could give someone the appropriate background if they were willing to learn.
Someone who says "If there is one, how is any distinction between things possible" is too far away for me to educate in text.

>>12162477
No it's just a logical question if you think about what you are actually saying, which amounts to a seeming monadism. If all things are composite from this thing you call a field, how is there anything to distinguish between the secondary qualities that are also constituted by this field? Maybe I misread what you meant, but it's not like you've done anything other than throw a noun at me. How do you know that this field exists? I have almost nothing to go on because you keep telling me nothing except that it's just so hard to tell me. You say that it is and I say how or why, but that's too much it seems. What is the appropriate background I need? Will you let me into your priestly secrets yet? How am I unwilling to learn? All I'm doing is asking you to tell me, what more do you want?

Anyone know the degree on the function describing the acceleration of an ocean wave breaking on shore? No? Hrm

I'm going for a few hours so I won't respond for a tad, in the meantime try to at least tell me A SINGLE THING you can certainly say and why, unless that's too hard

>>12162502
You're fucking autistic. Go read, learn and process. You're begging someone to hand you knowledge in silver platter. Learning is not passive, go read, learn, digest, then come ask an appropriate question.

Not everything in life can be summarized in a "The Manga Guide to Fundamental Theory of Everything"

Entitled autistic leech. Not even the guy youre bitching at by the way

>>12162502
>feed me with a spoon

>>12162367
It's kind of an answer, if you wanna know what waves are literally just watch a video on compression waves, there's different types of waves tho

>>12162345
a wave is a mathematical object, nothing else.

unless you are some retard like plato or rationalist atheists who say maths objects exist.

>>12162345
Good question OP. I have looked long and hard for a decent answer. My conclusion after many years: No one fucking knows. Its the elephant in the room. No one wants to admit they dont know. Hence all the non-answers and parroted bullshit you will hear here and everywhere else.

>>12162573
>>12162557
>Sci shits itself when having to explain absolutely anything
mfw

"What you actually expect me to tell you what I told you I know...S..stop asking for a spoonfeed! Go and learn or something Nerd!"
What is the difference between spoonfeeding and actually just telling me? Oh wait it's nothing and just a buzzword to dodge the question, faggots. Sorry next time I'll ask something a little more fundamental, oh wait, this is fundamental.

>>12162573
NOOOOOO You can't just ask something and expect an answer, you're supposed to be deferential to the secular priestly class! Show more obeisance!

>>12162909
Thank you, at last an honest man

>>12162367
Probability wave is not a physical object. It's a mathematical concept that describes the behaviour of a particle at quantum level. So the question is: how would you describe particle knowing it behaves as a probability wave (an elephant eats and shits the same way humans do, so you can use elephant as a tool of description of how human eat and defecate, but it doesn't mean that elephant are humans or vice versa). In other words: how it looks like if it's not a wave?

>>12163184
> So the question is: how would you describe particle knowing it behaves as a probability wave
So it is a particle?

>>12163191
It is called a particle, but it doesn't have anything common with other particle-like objects, e.g. dust or sand grain. It's called particle due to its small "size", although the word size suggest that there is a sharp limit at where you can find the particle and where you can't, like it would have a "solid surface". It doesn't. It's a "packet" of energy that behaves in strictly defined manner and that behaviour is well described by wave function. But it isn't a wave.

A wave is a solution to the wave equation. If you don't to hear about waves in the ocean, then a wave an abstract mathematical object which satisfies the wave equation.

>>12163254
>It's a "packet" of energy that behaves in strictly defined manner and that behavior is well described by wave function
Well we're getting somewhere at least. Do you describe it so strangely because it is intangible? What senses can you use to observe it?
>>12163257
This is descriptive but tautological

Best example I can think of. Is throwingnpebbles or rocks into a river or water. And that these ripples rippling. Are "waves" fron the center point of the "pebble impact/atom core" and how atoms "kind of" merge depend on the ripples of positive and negative electrons.

That's is my understanding of it(if I am wrong/or the concept is right but slight more nuisanced then this general interpretation, I would be glad to know)

>>12163266
I think it is profoundly stupid to call it "tautological." That means "useless" but in fact the satisfaction of the wave equation is the most useful thing to know about waves if he doesn't want to hear about waves in the ocean. Is it just confusing you that the wave equation has the word "wave" in its name? How about if I said, "A wave is function such that its second derivative with respect to time is equal to a scalar multiple of its Laplacian?" Does that seem like a "tautology" to you? Is it lost on you that the wave equation just has the word wave in its name due to an arbitrary but convenient convention while it actually contains much more information than its W-A-V-E label?

>>12163301
No I'm asking about it's ontological status, people have told me, as I stated in the OP, that people have said that it is not a particle, my question was - then what is it. Describing how particles move doesn't answer this question, describing the exact mathematical pattern is just a more precise way of saying the same thing. Don't be mad you can't into reading comprehension. It is tautological to answer my question with just another description of it's behavior. I didn't ask how is it, but what. Stop being undeservedly supercilious
>>12163299
That's still to say it is a particle which I have been told it isn't. Appreciate the honest attempt tho

>>12163301
Also to be very clear, a tautology is a statement that merely restates the question in the grammatical form of an answer while adding nothing. I.e
Q:"Why does the door open on the inside and not out"
A: "Because when I'm on the inside it opens towards me"

Can I be any clearer as to why your equation adds nothing in the exact same way?

>>12163299
>positive and negative electrons.
One day, im going to write a book on a collection of all the retarded things ive read anons say on here

>>12163311
>It is tautological to answer my question with just another description of it's behavior.
I think it is your reading comprehension is deficient. The wave equation doesn't describe waves. It defines them. This is like you telling me that the vector transformation law is just a useless description of how vectors work. The ontological status is that everything which satisfies the wave equation is a wave and nothing which does not satisfy the wave equation is a wave.

Separate question: Who do you feel is the retard in this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

>>12163331
You're literally not answering my question and I'm not wrong. It would be like me drawing a line on a piece of paper, a representation of whatever I define it to signify, and then say that what is signified has the ontological status of what the paper describes, it totally avoids the question - what is it that it is representing? Unless you mean to say that a wave is purely an abstract representation of a theoretical type of behavior, totally divorced from any signification value, in the same way that I might draw up A + B = C, and never fill in the variables, you aren't saying anything of substance. And if it is just this abstract analytical proposition, then why do people describe lights as waves and not particles? Do waves describe particle behaviors? What does it describe? What is light if not a particle? To answer this by saying that light is a wave is to say nothing ontological/metaphysical, which is the question.

>>12163331
>The wave equation doesn't describe waves. It defines them.
This is about as retarded as me asking a Christian - what is hell ontological, and they open up their bible and say hell is the place the wicked go after death. Yes that is the definition of hell, yes that does describe it, but what is hell? Is it made of matter? Is it in space? What is hell etc

That is you right now^

>>12163356
what is hell ontologically*
>>12163350
>>12163356
Both of these are replies to you El btw

>>12163350
Photons have properties that can be described by wave equations
Wave equations are mathematical models to describe easily observable waves like ripples on water

If I saw a ripple on water, and wanted to describe its phase, wavelength, amplitude, frequency, etc I could produce an equation, and call it the cuck equation.
Then I find that light can be described with the cuck equation.
Light can be described by a particle description too. Lets make a model and call it the faggot model.

Then light has a cuck-like property, and a faggot-like property. It has cuck-faggot duality.

>>12163362
See
>>12163356
You're just telling how hell is where the bad people go, and that we can call it the afterlife if you like, or Valhalla. But what IS hell, what is it made of, what is it's quiddity?

>Light isn't a particle
>Okay what is it
>Light is a wave

You see how this doesn't answer anything ontologically, Jesus Christ

A wave is a propagation of a force through a collection of particles

>>12163370
So light is a particle?

>>12163371
Light acts as both a particle and wave, a duality if you will

>>12163377
So when people say light isn't a particle, they are wrong? I hope you're right, but alot of people keep telling me it isn't a particle. If they said it is a particle that behaves like a wave, I'd be happy, but they don't say and, they say it isn't a particle etc. Ty for moving this forward

>>12163367
no, I'm not "just telling you".
I'm saying, light can be described mathematically, and that same description fits for ripples on water.

The only other thing you could be asking is "the 'wave description' fits for light, but is light actually a wave?", to which I would say I don't know.

Some people say there is an electromagnetic field, and light acts as a ripple in this field the same way water acts as a ripple on water.
Some physicists have a pilot wave theory, where a photon (particle) has it's trajectory altered by the electromagnetic fields ripples.
Others say that a particle is described by a probabilistic wave function, that when you measure the wave function, it gives you one of those weighted possibilities.

This is to say. The wave equation is derived from things every layperson would describe as a wave. Data on light is collected, and that data can be modelled by a wave equation. Whether that means that REALLY light is like a wave (in the way water ripples are), or whether it ONLY is described by wave equations (without actually being like water ripples), I don't think anyone knows.

If that doesn't answer your question, then you need to be more precise in your question rather than JUST TELLING ME that im not answering your question properly, trollboy

Also, i'm waiting for a more knowledgeable anon to shit on me for being a popsci cuck

>>12163383
it propagates as a wave, but imparts energy like particles

>>12163311
>>12163325
I am sorry for the positive or negative electrons. It has been years since I took chemistry. I mainly remember electrons transfer between atoms. To balance out. I apologize for saying negative/positive.

And also appreciate that you acknowledged my honest attempt was appreciated. And glad you informed that it is not how it works in th field in which you know. It was honestly a basic science attempt.

I guess I assume no matter how complex an issue wether physical or scientific.. that it boils down to the basics. And newton's laws of motion was introduced to me and my fellow students in 6th grade.

And now understand college or Hypothetical math is still being worked on constantly.

>>12162557
Tbh you sound like the autist

Id describe a wave as the distribution of energy across a medium.

>>12162897
Mathematical objects do exist and you are a cavedwelling retard if you legitimately think they do not.

>>12163394
I appreciate the answer and it goes so far as to tell me that you/we don't really know what light itself (not how it behaves) really is. The wave equation, like all equations, are outlines of form, not substance. To answer the question as to what something is (substantively) by saying that it has the form of x is what you are doing, but I can see that this is all that is known, which is fine, I appreciate this, but I don't therefore understand how people are so confident is saying that light isn't a particle. because if they don't know what it substantively is, and it is possible for particles to act as waves i.e water, then why are they so adamant to say it's not a particle. Thank you for your responses and I hope you see the problem nevertheless
>>12163420
This just begs the question - what is energy across a medium? You're just throwing more nouns at me. Is energy an object etc and so on and so on...

>>12163433
Who told you that light is not a particle?
That might answer your question

>>12163507
I'm not gonna doxx him but a physics grad student, also judging by the reaction of the board not being immediately "It's a particle that acts like a wave" I'd say it's a common view

>>12163507
It is not. Photon is a wave. Period.

>>12163516
Wrong

>>12163350
>it totally avoids the question - what is it that it is representing?
I think you changes your question to suit the rhetoric you have decided to employ, pic related.
>Unless you mean to say that a wave is purely an abstract representation of a theoretical type of behavior,
You said you didn't want to hear about waves in the ocean because they are "stuff." Good luck getting an explanation that is not abstract and also doesn't involve "stuff." Are you going to answer my question about the video? You think the guy is being a dick right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

>>12163350
>it totally avoids the question - what is it that it is representing?
I think you changed your question to suit the rhetoric you have decided to employ, pic related.

>Unless you mean to say that a wave is purely an abstract representation of a theoretical type of behavior,
You said you didn't want to hear about waves in the ocean because they are "stuff." Good luck getting an explanation that is not abstract and also doesn't involve "stuff." Are you going to answer my question about the video? You think the guy is being a dick right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

It's a sub-stuff type of thing, describable by its wave-like behavior.

>>12163523
I've said everything I can to clarify my conundrum, and I thought by wave people meant a substance not a form so read in that light (no pun intended) what I'm asking hasn't changed that much. No I'm not watching the vid

>>12163527
Unironically the best answer yet

>>12163515
I’m no expert, I haven’t studied physics at a grad level
Yeah, it seems everyone got caught up in the wave question and skipped the particle part. it’s not exactly as clear cut as “it’s not a particle”, imo. The photoelectric effect seems to indicate that it is particle-like, and there are questions around whether it is a particle that is influenced by wave phenomena (like pilot wave theory). Though there is also the possibility that it is actually a wave that appears to have particle properties without being a particle.

I don’t know enough to have a good opinion on the subject, beyond that it appears to behave somewhat like a particle, somewhat like a wave.

>>12162345
there are no waves without physical material. even magnetic fields are physical. if your talking about light its particles

the wave is demonstrated through diffusion some times. so if your talking about a half mirrored glass plate and the wave form its just the deviation from the point that the laser would have hit if nothing was present and a spread pattern is considered a wave form

also wave forms for some things like say light again its oscillation . so the wave length of light is the distance the electrons travel from the photon before turning back . wavelength is literal. radio transmissions can be say 140 yards quarter wave . visible is much smaller in the hundreds of nm range.

also oscillation in amplitude can be a wave form. so from say 0 volts to 90 to 0 to -90 is a wave form

>>12163540
Nice, ty for the honest answer. I'm gonna head to bed, gn all

Gotta flex one more time before I go

>>12163540
It's a wave that interacts with other waves discretely

>>12162345
All fundamental particles have oscillatory features

>>12163559
No it’s a particle that interacts with other particles continuously

>>12163394
yeah whatever, didnt read.


also im trans btw

I know that this might be a stupid question, but what exactly is spin?

>>12163580
No one cares about you
Don’t reply to my posts again, faggot

>>12163597
Just don't worry about it bro

>>12163597
Only the funkiest album you’ll hear in your entire life https://youtu.be/8Ick2l9va6A

>>12163519
No, you are wrong!

>>12163383
Your entire line of questioning doesn't make sense. Light is its own fundamental thing. Calling it a particle or wave is just describing how light behaves. Since its behavior is not solely particle-like nor wave-like, we say it's truly neither.

>>12163597
>I know that this might be a stupid question, but what exactly is spin?
an intrinsic property of ''particles'' stemming the poincare lorenz symmetry group of the spacetime. It has nothing quantum about it.

>>12163166
>>12163170
OP asked what a wave was and I gave him an answer in the simplest possible terms. Those simple terms used the word "field" which is a fundamental concept in physics.
He then asked what a field was and we all told him. But he didn't want any analogies, equations, or references to other work. Just a thing you can point to. A substance he can touch so his baby brain can grasp the concept.

>>12162345
A wave is simply a continuous function of a space (in math sense) with respect to time

yeah in physics a wave is a jsut some cosine function

relevant waves are solution of wave equations

>>12162412
Imagine a 3d space where every point describes temperature in that point.
This is a field, but it is not a designation of any object since temp is not a physical thing in itself.
Your understanding of fields lacks a certain level of abstraction.

>>12163805
>thing in itself
Can you give me an example?

>>12162345
An object or system of objects where one or more physical attributes can be modelled using a wave equation.

>>12162352
A wave is a feeling

science hurts my head bros

>>12162345
A wave is a mathematical object which satisfies the wave equation. Some may generalize this definition to include those which satisfy various (nonlinear) generalizations of the wave equation.
>b-but what IS a wave IN NATURE?
There's no such thing. Some physical phenomena are very well-modeled by the wave equation. Some things aren't. That's all there is to it.
Put another way, "wave" is a noun used to succinctly describe processes which obey the wave equation. "Ocean waves" refer to "water molecules (etc.) whose collective motions may be accurately modeled (to within desired experimental precision) as some mathematical object which is a solution to a generalized wave equation with a particular choice of parameters."

tl;dr learn what science actually is, not the garbage they fed you at school.

>>12162345
How will knowing the answer to this question help me get laid

>>12165240
Girls are like waves. If you miss one theres always another right behind it
t surfer

>>12162345
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave

A particle can travel in a sine pattern.

>>12163773
Go back to studying your 1980's texts Pajeet.

>>12162345
something that has periods

>>12162345
Waves are an illusory 3rd dimensional projection of a 4d spheroid construct. It has no mass because it is completely stationary on the 3rd dimensions, it only appears to be moving as it moves directly along the 4th dimensional axis, causing an illusory expansion effect that gives the appearance of an outward expanding wave. Think of a 3d sphere moving along the z axis within a 2d projection. The sphere appears as an expanding 2d circle, but it's actually a 3d sphere moving along an invisible axis, and isn't moving in the x or y axis at all

>>12166261
Also to add on to this, the famous "wave" movement of electromagnetic particles is the result of said particles rotating along a combination of an x/y/z axis and the unseen 4th-dimensional axis that they are actually moving through.

>>12166261
>>12166272
I know what you’re talking about. This is what the sine graph is actually doing, moving directly toward or away from us if we look down at the graph

>>12162345
I don't know, /sci/'s book isn't finished yet. Here's the previous chapter though. Maybe /sci/ can write the chapter on waves here.

Naively put, any physical system in which the rate of change in time is related to the rate of change in space, the behavior can be described by wave solutions. It turns out, these kind of systems are everywhere in physics, which is why waves pop up everywhere as well. You can justify physically what terms in the differential wave equation relate to specific physical quantities by looking at the specifics of the problem you are trying to solve, like the internal forces in a string, or electromagnetic fields in empty space. But in the end, if the physical quantities can be related to each other via the wave equation, waves are inevitable to pop up. If you are asking why our universe bahaves this way, and not in some other way, thats not a question any mortal can possible tell you the answer to.

>>12162510
Actually yes, its nicely desceribed by catastrophy theory

>>12166528
can you link /sci/'s book? i never knew this was a thing and it sounds like it will actually be pretty informative

A measurable phenomenon which oscillates. We know no more than that.

A wave is like a girl insofar as if the last one didn’t suck your dick the next one is probably going to

Waves in the ocean pretty much wouldn't even exist were it not for the wave-like nature of subatomic particles

>>12162345
Bump

>>12162909
Waves are just regular perturbations/oscillations in a field, it ain't that hard

>>12163540
Yeah, it just has properties of both. You can't fully describe it without using mechanics for particles and waves. Diffracts like a wave but acts like a point when it hits something.

>>12162345
>a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities, sometimes as described by a wave equation. In physical waves, at least two field quantities in the wave medium are involved.

>anon destroys /sci/ with a single shitpost about the most basic science question that scientists can't even answer
based

>>12163546
>there are no waves without physical material

If I recall properly, that sounds like a problematic assumption physicists were assuming say back. One of the big things about electromagnetic radiation was "what material does it propagate through?" And the answer turned out to be nothing. I might be wrong.

Either way, I think OP is asking an incredibly subtle question that even physicists dont fully understand. I dont know much being a mathematician looking over the fence, but it seems to me you're just not going to get a better answer than "that's just how we can model them."

>>12163683
No sir you are incorrect

[math] you = (gay)e^{i\phi} [\math]

where [math] \phi [\math] is the gay phase

everyone in this thread is committing the mind projection fallacy. literally everyone, i read all of your posts

>>12168803
There are 20 different definitions for what a wave is in this thread, multiplicities for the same given phenomena implies the essence of the phenomenona is not understood

>>12168810
Not mine

>>12163529
it’s a good video desu, have no idea why I hadn’t come across it before

A wave is love

mfw when /sci/ gets mad at OP for asking a basic question they can't answer

>>12163664
Now this is pretty hot.

>>12163331
Equations cannot define things. Things exist outside of equations. It is like saying the Ohm's law defines current or voltage. Or newtons laws define force etc. Or the field is defined by the field equation.
Reminds me of
>What is a tensor?
>Why, it is something that transforms like a tensor

>>12172479
>>12163331
There's a misunderstanding about the existence of concepts and reality. This disagreement is philosophical. Tooker is right about the mathematical definition.

>>12162345
A wave is an oscillating behavior of a many-valued physical quantity, when abstracted as a space-dependent variable. A particle is an isolated, localized plateau of a binary-valued physical quantity, when abstracted as a space-dependent variable.

>>12163311

>>12162369
Yeah actually it’s a pretty good one