## Wednesday, February 15, 2017

### gravitational field of the hot sun

could you estimate by how much the gravitational field of the sun is larger because of the high internal energy compared to simply the rest mass? can one write down a correction factor as a function of temperature $T$?

## Wednesday, February 8, 2017

### spin-down of the Crab-pulsar

the Crab-pulsar is a rapidly spinning magnetic neutron star, which induces very large electric fields in the surrounding Crab-nebula, where the resulting electric currents are dissipated by Ohm losses. could you estimate the time-scale of this process and judge if it's a viable model for explaining the spin-down?

## Wednesday, February 1, 2017

### electromagnetic duality

could you provide an argument (both for the equations of motion and the Lagrange-density) why in empty space electrodynamics is invariant under the replacement $\vec{E}\rightarrow\vec{B}$ and $\vec{B}\rightarrow -\vec{E}$?

## Wednesday, January 25, 2017

### gravity and retardation

the field equation of general relativity is invariant under time-reversal (and parity inversion). in what way is retardation of the gravitational field generated by a matter distribution is preferred over advanced potentials?

## Saturday, January 21, 2017

### forces in relativity

relativistic forces are always velocity dependent but velocity dependent forces are not necessarily relativistic... is that true?

this post is in celebration of $10^5$ views!

## Wednesday, January 18, 2017

### very heavy and very light

can you explain why the ratio between the Hubble mass (i.e. the mass inside the Hubble volume today for a critical universe) and the Planck mass is about $10^{60}$? why are stars roughly in the middle (on a logarithmic scale)? or even more puzzling: why's the ratio between Hubble and Planck-mass about equal to the ratio between stellar masses and the masses of nucleons?

## Wednesday, January 11, 2017

### forces on dust particles

can you compute the ratio between radiation pressure and gravity acting on a dust particle in the solar system? could one relate the two forces to the mass of the Sun and establish a minimal mass from which on there would be no dust and hence no planetary system?

we wish all CQW-readers a successful year 2017 full of cosmological discoveries.