Evolution Definition and 735 Threads

Here on physicsforums, there is a diverse range of political and moral belief. I am interested in the subject of how people form their political views. At what age did you become politically aware? What was the biggest influence on your worldview? Did your morals and beliefs change over...

I know the general accepted theory to the birth of our solar system. One or more nearby stars went supernova and the shock waves caused our gas cloud to collapse forming our solar system. However, i wanted an opinion from those with more knowledge on a hypothesis that seems to make some sense...

Hi This is the first time I am posting in Biology forum. I didn't study any biology after grade 10. But I always found it fascinating. So I have a question about the theory of evolution. Now as I understand it, theory says that the parts of human body, or the behavior tend to get...

I recently had a probelm in QM to find the time evolution of a hydrogen prepared in a state with a wave function that is not an energy eigenfunction: specifically, psi = Y21*R2p where Y is then the D spherical harmonic. Of course, n=2 hydrogen doesn't have d oribtals. So the problem is I...

The time evolution operaton may be written formally as: This is an actual solution to: only in the case that [H(t1),H(t2)]=0 (that is: the hamiltonian commutes in different instants of time) Of course, this includes the case of a time independent hamiltonian. If this is not the case, the...

The question is: what is the quantum state of a free particle t time after its detection at the position r0 in t=0? I know I have to use the evolution operator with the hamiltonian of a free particle. My actual problem is more stupid than that: I don't really know how to express the STATE of...

As different individuals and races are very different comparing this trait, alcohol tolerance has/is probably under heavy genetic selection. As there isn't much alcohol outside human society, i wonder whether people craved alcohol by accident already before it became abundant or did that trait...

Hello firstly are Homosapiens evolved from Neanderthals or are we a different all together or did Homosapiens evolve side by side with Neanderthals did we interbreed ,sorry i know my English is terrible i just have an unquenchable thirst for answers.thankyou

*** Yikes .. this got moved from General discussion to Biology. This isn't about Biology, before you jump down my throat! ***** Life evolves, businesses evolve, products evolve, web sites evolve, ideas evolve etc. etc. This always seemed like a good thing to me - the right way to go. But...

What is the empirical evidence that the red dwarves we observe nowadys were once like our sun in magnitude and luminosity? Thanks in advance for any reference.

Homework Statement I'm trying to find the geometric phase for the adiabatic widening of the infinite square well. Griffiths defines the geometric phase to be: \gamma=i* \int^{w2}_{w1}<\psi_{n}|\frac{d\psi_{n}}{dR}>dR Where R is the aspect of the potential that is changing and w1, w2 are the...

Liver and Kidney Evolution! Please Help! I'm writing several papers for a comparative vertebrate anatomy course, in which, among other things, I will discuss the reasons for anatomical differences in the liver and kidney of various organisms. I have the class data set for the weights of the...

Homework Statement Show that U*(pi/(2*omega)) |x> is an eigenvecor of p and specify its eigenvalue. Similarly, establish that U*(pi/(2*omega)) |p> is an eigenvector of x. Homework Equations U*(t) = exp((i/h_bar)H*t) The Attempt at a Solution I've tried using closure with P...

Hi, I am using a model that estimates pressure (P) in an intake manifold. I think there is a mistake in its equations but I cannot find it. To simplify the problem we can make the following assumptions: - Only air fills the manifold: air comes into the manifold through the throttle (mass...

Hey i was wondering how to express the time evolution operator U(t,to) to a momentum eigen state |p> for a particle moving in the xdirection under a zero potential, V= 0. The reason i need this is that iam told the only way to get the matrix element of the time evolution operator using position...

I've been trying to solve some questions using dirac notation, and most seem to be pretty straight forward (once you set everything up) but i always seem to get stuck when i try to find the matrix element and i can't seem to find the proper way to express the eigenstates given... so for example...

The ETS released exams date back to 86. Have the exams changed much in style or content throughout the years? Surely, the older exams are worth working through, but are the "newer'' exams like 96 or 01 more like the exams administered in the past few years?

does evolution violate the second law. from my understanding the second law only applies in a closed system and the Earth is an open system with an energy output. (the sun) so therefore entropy is increasing and it doesn't violate the law correct or incorrect?

Hi there: I have a somewhat strange/vague question and hoped that someone here could point me in the right direction to find a solution. I have a system comprising of a number of identical particles (i.e., I can't differentiate between them) in 2-D space. I have numerous observations of...

Hello All, Using Time dependent perterbation we could predict the Rabi precession and the spin states of the electrons, for example, in an external magnetic field. I was wondering how could we calculate the evolution from a random spin state to one of the defined spin states, does it defy the...

So I've just read through http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/science-with-soul-sells/ and I found it *extremely* inspiring. Namely, this quote in particular: And so, I've thought - is there a significant number of people who are interested in these three subjects in particular...

My friend who thinks we were "created" keeps telling me that there's no link of a human evolving from a previous species.. Now I keep telling that there's tons of evidence in museums & whatnot, but is there any good links online that can clearly show him?

So I just watched a Nova documentary on epigenetics called "Ghost in your Genes"... I had never heard of epigenetics. Apparently its things being passed down amongst people by means other than our GENES and DNA. Things like smoking being passed down from grandparents to grandchildren and...

I can probably argue against evolution without biblical references? Anyone wish to hear my argument?

I'm currently reading a book that presents the different kinds of evidence for evolution. Throughout the book, the author claims that evolution can make certain testable predictions. For example, he writes about biologists who examined birds and reptiles and predicted that they'd find a common...

Is having a genetic advantage enough for evolution to occur? Doesnt a organism require some sort of knowledge (or instinct) in order to use such an advantage in order for it to be any sort of advantage? Example: we say the first step in the formation of a eye is a cell that is sensitive to...

I do not study biology, i enjoy physics a lot more, but recently while i was thinking about our origins a question aroused my interest. As i said i do not study biology, and i do not doubt evolution(this is asked out of honest curiosity). From my understanding all life started as a form of...

Evolution of Carbon dioxide from Sodium bicarbonate and potassium hydroxide??! Hi!:smile: Here’s a question my teacher asked me to solve about evolution of carbon dioxide, We know that carbon dioxide is obtained by the action pf dilute acids on any metallic carbonate or bicarbonate e.g...

I have been reading Charles Darwins Book "The Beginning Of Species" and it has got me thinking. Would it be possible to breed a NEW species of Mammal within a life time? i was thinking about using mice because their breeding cycle is quite short. Does anyone have any knowledge of anyone...

Second thread on the evolution of like, in the Archaen and Proterozoic eons. There are many kinds of eyes, and many have arisen quite independently; the classic example of convergent evolution. Did sexual reproduction arise more than once, independently? Is it too an example of convergent...

Do you guys think we reached the peak of our evolution? Is there any higher advanced form we can evolve into as time passes, or are we really at our peak? Natural selection doesn't appear to take place for humans anymore, since the average human isn't being weeded out by some physical defect.

I'm trying to get some real numbers for the probability of evolution occurring by random mutations, but cannot find anything helpful in the literature--- except that a single base-pair genome mutation occurs once in every 10exp-6 DNA replications. So I'm trying to use this meager...

DELETED because of immature thinking :(

I'm finding it hard to describe what I mean, but here it goes. According to the evolution theory monkeys, apes among others, and humans have a common ancestor - their hereditary line of ascent leads to a common forefather(s). As evolution predicts, let's say, male nipples is a proof that human...

I hope someone can help me out here, I am confused with a line of text I read - it is an example of a 2D Hilbert space with orthonormal basis e1, e2. The Hamiltonian of the system is the Pauli matrix in the y-direction. Given by the matrix: \sigma_{y} = (\frac{0, -i}{i, 0}) The eigenvectors...

i was wondering if anybody had any thoughts about the symbiotic relationship between us and viruses, and whether the fact that we are vehicles for them motivate them to to change us and modify our evolution.

Evolution is the greatest nano-engineer that ever existed. I always assumed that if anything was physically possible at everyday Earth temperatures, forces and velocities then it would have emerged naturally from evolution, since the evolutionary benefits are clearly enormous. eg that's why...

Hi, I stumbled on your website when looking for a good place to ask educated professionals. I'm 16, I have a question on evolution. Ok so let's say there are these birds on an island with a food source that require long pecks, but these birds have smaller pecks than needed. So after a...

Newbie...first post...apologies in advance. How soon after the big bang could intelligent, technological life evolve?

In several threads where I've seen the redshift issue discussed there's been some confusion about this point, Must we treat cosmological redshift as a purely kinematic (relativistic)doppler effect or as the time dymamics of the metric space? Or both views can be made to converge?

Has social complexity increased with evolutionary changes? Put another way, is complex social behavior a strong survival trait in general?

Is the evolution of our technology and medicine leading to "de-evolution"? First off, I have a very limited biology background, so I apologize now. Secondly, it's hard to show emotion through typing; what I'm saying in not meant to be derogatory or offensive to anyone. Survival of the...

Do you think that the human species will survive long enough to produce a new subspecies or a separate species? Personally, I think we are doomed to kill ourselves off prior to an new development. However, our species comes from a long line of individuals that have adapted and survived many...

Is evolution (Darwinian) considered part of the science of cosmology? or would that be another subject entirely?

I was just wondering where we agree that evolution began. I heard it was from the firtst single cell organism but that does not make sense as the organism must have already been evloving with it nucleus and DNA. Do we consider the formation of DNA evolution? Do we consider molecules to...

I am trying to write a differential evolution in FORTRAN, but I am a bit confused by the concept. I've read through Storn and Price's explanation of the concept, but I'm still not getting it. Can anyone offer a dumb-ed down version of what exactly a differential evolution is?

This has been giving me head aches for the past so many days and it reflected in the "Random Evolution" thread too. But i think it deserves a new thread as googling for "evolution free will site:physicsforums.com" doesn't give satisfactory results. So here is the question. Does the theory of...

Hello is is a continuation of a discussion that got started in the special relativity section but is a split-off and more appropriate here. The question is does evolution add information to the genome?

For the sake of simplicity, I'm dropping unnecessary constants like \hbar . I'm working on a problem in quantum control theory, and trying to find a test case to synthesize the ternary Toffoli gate. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find a basis that admits a possible solution. In order to...