December 8th, 2002, 01:14 PM
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Lieutenant General
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Oxford, UK
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Re: thoughts - the source of all problems and disbalances
Quote:
Originally posted by capnq:
quote:
consider how a comet's tail always faces away from the sun because of the solar wind (i.e. light) pushing the recently-melted ice particles directly away from the sun
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The solar wind is made up of charged particles, not photons.
Momentum transfer from photons is how solar sails work.
The fact that a beam of light has a momentum which is transfered to solid objects upon reflection/absorbtion of light has been established by Russian scientist Lebedev in the end of 19th centuary. The discovery ressurected Newton's theory of particle nature of light and ultimately led to the modern quantum theory.
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It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. - Voltaire
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