Re: Setting constants like hbar to unity

From: FrediFizzx (fredifizzx_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 08/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 13:21:35 -0700

"greywolf42" <mingstb@marssim-ss.com> wrote in message
news:YzpYc.661$mS5.391@news.flashnewsgroups.com...
| This is a copy of a post that was banned by Phillip Helbig from the
| sci.physics.research newsgroup. Phillip claimed:
|
| "Unfortunately, the article you posted to sci.physics.research is
| inappropriate for the newsgroup because this discussion has become too
| repetitive and lost most of its physics content."
|
| It's quite clear, however, that it is neither the 'repetitivness' nor the
| lack of 'content' to which Phillip objected. It's simply that Phillip
| doesn't like the content.

Well, that is a moderator's perogative also. But it does seem to me that it
was getting repetitive in the concept that Phillip was being kind and not
saying that it was getting "boring". ;-)

[snip the "boring" parts ;-)]

| But I'm not opposing the metric system, or rationalizing units. I'm
| opposing creating deliberately confusing units for purely philosophical
| reasons.

Such as what exactly? Any system of units that is self-consistent is just
as good as any other. The only thing that has been missing that has
probably added to the "confusion" is the concept of vacuum charge = +,-
sqrt(hbar*c) in cgs or +,- sqrt(4pi*eps0*hbar*c) in SI or +,- 1 in natural
units of hbar = c = 1. Vacuum charge makes it all make sense.

I just got done reading section 3.2.5 in Volovik's book "The Universe in a
Helium Droplet" about "Fundamental constants and Planck scales". He claims;
"The 'fundamentalness' of constants depends on the energy scale. Using four
'fundamental' constants one can construct two energy parameters, which play
the role of the Planck energy scales:

E_planck1 = m*c^2, E_planck2 = hbar*c/a_0,

with E_planck1 << E_planck2 in the Bose gas." ..."...where a_0 is the
interatomic distance related to the particle density n: a_0 ~ n^{-1/3}." I
am still trying to decipher exactly what he means here.

FrediFizzx

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