Mixed Symmetry Solutions of Generalized Three-Particle Bargmann-Wigner Equations in the Strong-Coupling Limit

Starting from a nonlinear isospinor-spinor field equation, generalized three-particle Bargmann-Wigner equations are derived. In the strong-coupling limit, a special class of spin 1/2 bound-states are calculated. These solutions which are antisymmetric with respect to all indices, have mixed symmetries in isospin-superspin space and in spin orbit space. As a consequence of this mixed symmetry, we get three solution manifolds. In appendix \ref{b}, table 2, these solution manifolds are interpreted as the three generations of leptons and quarks. This interpretation will be justified in a forthcoming paper.Comment: 17 page

Using Empirical Mode Decomposition to Study Periodicity and Trends in Extreme Precipitation

Classically, we look at annual maximum precipitation series from the perspective of extreme value statistics, which provides a useful statistical distribution, but does not allow much flexibility in the context of climate change. Such distributions are usually assumed to be static, or else require some assumed information about possible trends within the data. For this study, we treat the maximum rainfall series as sums of underlying signals, upon which we perform a decomposition technique, Empirical Mode Decomposition. This not only allows the study of non-linear trends in the data, but could give us some idea of the periodic forces that have an effect on our series. To this end, data was taken from stations in the New England area, from different climatological regions, with the hopes of seeing temporal and spacial effects of climate change. Although results vary among the chosen stations the results show some weak signals and in many cases a trend-like residual function is determined

On the history of the so-called Lense-Thirring effect

Some historical documents, especially the Einstein-Besso manuscript from 1913, an extensive notebook by Hans Thirring from 1917, and a correspondence between Thirring and Albert Einstein in the year 1917 reveal that most of the merit of the so-called Lense-Thirring effect of general relativity belongs to Einstein. Besides this ``central story" of the effect, we comment shortly on some type of prehistory, with contributions by Mach, Benedikt and Immanuel Friedlaender, and August Foeppl, and we follow the later history of the problem of a correct centrifugal force inside a rotating mass shell which was resolved only relatively recently. We also shortly comment on recent possibilities to confirm the so-called Lense-Thirring effect, and the related Schiff effect, experimentally

Dragica Rajcic: Writing Women and War in the Margins

Croatian-born Dragica Rajcic has received several awards for her poetry and short prose works. The author, who writes in German, permanently resides in Switzerland since fleeing war-torn Croatia in 1991. Rajcic\u27s Heimat, she claims, is in language, not any place defined by geographical boundaries (Rajcic, 2009). Often praised for its sharp irony and cutting insight, Rajcic\u27s language artfully deconstructs the reality it circumscribes. Defiant of the linguistic rules of grammar prescribed by High German, Rajcic\u27s voice revels in its foreignness, in its ability to comment and critique precisely because it stands outside the realm of the familiar and expected. [excerpt

Interface free energy or surface tension: definition and basic properties

Interface free energy is the contribution to the free energy of a system due to the presence of an interface separating two coexisting phases at equilibrium. It is also called surface tension. The content of the paper is 1) the definition of the interface free energy from first principles of statistical mechanics; 2) a detailed exposition of its basic properties. We consider lattice models with short range interactions, like the Ising model. A nice feature of lattice models is that the interface free energy is anisotropic so that some results are pertinent to the case of a crystal in equilibrium with its vapor. The results of section 2 hold in full generality.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figure

An elementary proof of Hilbert's theorem on ternary quartics

In 1888, Hilbert proved that every non-negative quartic form f=f(x,y,z) with real coefficients is a sum of three squares of quadratic forms. His proof was ahead of its time and used advanced methods from topology and algebraic geometry. Up to now, no elementary proof is known. Here we present a completely new approach. Although our proof is not easy, it uses only elementary techniques. As a by-product, it gives information on the number of representations f=p_1^2+p_2^2+p_3^2 of f up to orthogonal equivalence. We show that this number is 8 for generically chosen f, and that it is 4 when f is chosen generically with a real zero. Although these facts were known, there was no elementary approach to them so far.Comment: 26 page