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Science

unblock

(55,467 posts)

6. A lot of this is done through computer models these days

Reply to Permanut (Reply #2)

Mon Jun 30, 2025, 11:37 PM

Jun 30

I don't know about this result in particular. But it's been known for a long time that electrons travel fast enough to have relativistic effects. But the speed of an average electron id about 1/135th the speed of light, so the relativistic effect is tiny enough to ignore in practice.

So I imagine they built a computer model to simulate mercury droplets, and it didn't behave as expected. So they scratch their heads and eventually someone says maybe we need to adjust the electron mass due to relativistic effects. Then suddenly the model works.

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Permanut erronis

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An example of Special relativity [View all] BootinUp Jun 30 OP

Interesting, but not enough basic references to make it worthwhile following. erronis Jun 30 #1

I might look around and post back. nt BootinUp Jun 30 #3

Found something BootinUp Jun 30 #4

Here's one paper that seems relevant, but it's pretty dense. unblock Jun 30 #5

Thanks. Worth a peruse! erronis Jul 1 #7

Cool! Permanut Jun 30 #2

A lot of this is done through computer models these days unblock Jun 30 #6

Thanks for that quick synopsis. I like "So they scratch their heads..." erronis Jul 1 #8