211 research outputs found
Thermal conductivity through the nineteenth century
As a material property and as a metaphor, thermal conductivity occupies an
important position in physical, biological and geological sciences. Yet, its
precise measurement is dependent on using electricity as a proxy because
flowing heat cannot directly be measured.Comment: Submitted to Physics Today. 4,500 words, 4 figure
Anarchism, Utopianism and Hospitality: The Work of René Schérer
René Schérer (born 1922) is lamentably almost unknown to the Anglo-American world as his work has, as yet, not been translated . He is one of the main specialists of the French “utopian socialist”, Charles Fourier (1772-1837), and a major thinker in his own right. He is the author of more than twenty books and co-editor of the journal Chimères. Colleague and friend at Vincennes university (Paris 8) of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Rancière, Jean-François Lyotard, François Châletet, Alain Brossat, Georges Navet, Miguel Abensour, Pierre Macherey… he continues to host seminars at Paris 8 (now located at St. Denis). He is a living testimony to a radical past, and a continuing inspiration to a new generation of young thinkers. This article aims to convey the original specificity of his understanding of anarchism. By so doing, it will stress the importance of his work for any thinking concerned with a politicised resistance to social conformity and the supposed “state of things” today
Distribution of roots of random real generalized polynomials
The average density of zeros for monic generalized polynomials,
, with real holomorphic and
real Gaussian coefficients is expressed in terms of correlation functions of
the values of the polynomial and its derivative. We obtain compact expressions
for both the regular component (generated by the complex roots) and the
singular one (real roots) of the average density of roots. The density of the
regular component goes to zero in the vicinity of the real axis like
. We present the low and high disorder asymptotic
behaviors. Then we particularize to the large limit of the average density
of complex roots of monic algebraic polynomials of the form with real independent, identically distributed
Gaussian coefficients having zero mean and dispersion . The average density tends to a simple, {\em universal}
function of and in the domain where nearly all the roots are located for
large .Comment: 17 pages, Revtex. To appear in J. Stat. Phys. Uuencoded gz-compresed
tarfile (.66MB) containing 8 Postscript figures is available by e-mail from
[email protected]
Tomograms and other transforms. A unified view
A general framework is presented which unifies the treatment of wavelet-like,
quasidistribution, and tomographic transforms. Explicit formulas relating the
three types of transforms are obtained. The case of transforms associated to
the symplectic and affine groups is treated in some detail. Special emphasis is
given to the properties of the scale-time and scale-frequency tomograms.
Tomograms are interpreted as a tool to sample the signal space by a family of
curves or as the matrix element of a projector.Comment: 19 pages latex, submitted to J. Phys. A: Math and Ge
Heat conduction and Fourier's law in a class of many particle dispersing billiards
We consider the motion of many confined billiard balls in interaction and
discuss their transport and chaotic properties. In spite of the absence of mass
transport, due to confinement, energy transport can take place through binary
collisions between neighbouring particles. We explore the conditions under
which relaxation to local equilibrium occurs on time scales much shorter than
that of binary collisions, which characterize the transport of energy, and
subsequent relaxation to local thermal equilibrium. Starting from the
pseudo-Liouville equation for the time evolution of phase-space distributions,
we derive a master equation which governs the energy exchange between the
system constituents. We thus obtain analytical results relating the transport
coefficient of thermal conductivity to the frequency of collision events and
compute these quantities. We also provide estimates of the Lyapunov exponents
and Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy under the assumption of scale separation. The
validity of our results is confirmed by extensive numerical studies.Comment: fixed figs. 12 & 13. Version to appear in New J. Phy
Statistical Analysis and Molecular Dynamics Simulations of the Thermal Conductivity of Lennard–Jones Solids Including Their Pressure and Temperature Dependencies
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH GmbH Aspects of the thermal conductivity, λ, of a Lennard–Jones (LJ) solid along an isotherm and the sublimation line are studied using equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. A reformulation of the Green–Kubo time correlation function expression for λ in the form of a probability distribution function (PDF) of single trajectory contributions (STC) exhibits the same characteristic statistical trends as found previously for liquids, even at high pressures and low temperatures. The analysis reveals that for short periods of time the thermal conductivity can be negative. This feature is evident along the sublimation line isobar and a low-temperature isotherm going to high densities. Along the isobar and isotherm lines, λ is to a good approximation a power law in temperature and density, respectively. This behavior is used in a more general thermodynamics-based analysis description of the state point dependence of the thermal conductivity. The heat flux autocorrelation function increasingly develops a damped oscillatory appearance as pressure increases or temperature decreases, consistent with the phonon formulation of thermal conductivity.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Grant Number: EP/N025954/
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to
the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896),
and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a
fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump
driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively
equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of
thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in
almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature
it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm
scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the
underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no
common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the
fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to
determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently
mentioned difference of 33 degrees Celsius is a meaningless number calculated
wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the
assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and
friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is
falsified.Comment: 115 pages, 32 figures, 13 tables (some typos corrected
The number of flags in finite vector spaces: Asymptotic normality and Mahonian statistics
We study the generalized Galois numbers which count flags of length r in
N-dimensional vector spaces over finite fields. We prove that the coefficients
of those polynomials are asymptotically Gaussian normally distributed as N
becomes large. Furthermore, we interpret the generalized Galois numbers as
weighted inversion statistics on the descent classes of the symmetric group on
N elements and identify their asymptotic limit as the Mahonian inversion
statistic when r approaches infinity. Finally, we apply our statements to
derive further statistical aspects of generalized Rogers-Szegoe polynomials,
re-interpret the asymptotic behavior of linear q-ary codes and characters of
the symmetric group acting on subspaces over finite fields, and discuss
implications for affine Demazure modules and joint probability generating
functions of descent-inversion statistics.Comment: 19 pages. Corrected proof of asymptotic normality (Theorem 3.5).
Previous Proposition 3.3 is fals
Thermal conductivity of refractory glass fibres
In the present study, the current international
standards and corresponding apparatus for measuring the
thermal conductivity of refractory glass fibre products have
been reviewed. Refractory glass fibres are normally produced
in the form of low-density needled mats. A major
issue with thermal conductivity measurements of these
materials is lack of reproducibility in the test results due to
transformation of the test material during the test. Also
needled mats are inherently inhomogeneous, and this poses
additional problems. To be able to compare the various
methods of thermal conductivity measurement, a refractory
reference material was designed which is capable of
withstanding maximum test temperatures (1673 K) with
minimum transformation. The thermal conductivity of this
reference material was then measured using various
methods according to the different standards surveyed. In
order to compare different materials, samples have been
acquired from major refractory glass fibre manufacturers
and the results have been compared against the newly
introduced reference material. Materials manufactured by
melt spinning, melt blowing and sol–gel have been studied,
and results compared with literature values
Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies Risk Loci for Cluster Headache
OBJECTIVE: To identify susceptibility loci for cluster headache and obtain insights into relevant disease pathways. METHODS: We carried out a genome-wide association study, where 852 UK and 591 Swedish cluster headache cases were compared with 5,614 and 1,134 controls, respectively. Following quality control and imputation, single variant association testing was conducted using a logistic mixed model, for each cohort. The two cohorts were subsequently combined in a merged analysis. Downstream analyses, such as gene-set enrichment, functional variant annotation, prediction and pathway analyses, were performed. RESULTS: Initial independent analysis identified two replicable cluster headache susceptibility loci on chromosome 2. A merged analysis identified an additional locus on chromosome 1 and confirmed a locus significant in the UK analysis on chromosome 6, which overlaps with a previously known migraine locus. The lead single nucleotide polymorphisms were rs113658130 (p = 1.92 x 10-17 , OR [95%CI] = 1.51 [1.37-1.66]) and rs4519530 (p = 6.98 x 10-17 , OR = 1.47 [1.34-1.61]) on chromosome 2, rs12121134 on chromosome 1 (p = 1.66 x 10-8 , OR = 1.36 [1.22-1.52]) and rs11153082 (p = 1.85 x 10-8 , OR = 1.30 [1.19-1.42]) on chromosome 6. Downstream analyses implicated immunological processes in the pathogenesis of cluster headache. INTERPRETATION: We identified and replicated several genome-wide-significant associations supporting a genetic predisposition in cluster headache in a genome-wide association study involving 1,443 cases. Replication in larger independent cohorts combined with comprehensive phenotyping, in relation to e.g. treatment response and cluster headache subtypes, could provide unprecedented insights into genotype-phenotype correlations and the pathophysiological pathways underlying cluster headache
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