At 10:46 AM 5/12/99 -0400, John Denker wrote:
Me:
|At 08:05 AM 5/12/99 -0600, Jim Green wrote:
|>John, if I know the E of the system, how can the p of any particle be >
|>sqrt (2mE)? If it were, then E would be = p^2/2m
|
John:
|There's a difference between "any" and "all".
|
|If *all* of them had p > sqrt 2mE, then sure, that would be inconsistent
|with the given total E.
|
Me in a space warp:
Absolutely right - I was in a space warp.
Me back on Earth I hope:
No No No No that ain't right!
Suppose there are 4 particles with energies of 2, 4, 6, 8 -- their average
energy is of course 5 but the total energy of the system is 20 -- NONE of
the particles can ever have an energy >20. NOW what did I do wrong?
Space warps are not all that bad come to think of it.