Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli  40

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Authentication (cryptography) Updated 2025-07-16

In the context of cryptography, authentication means "ensuring that the message you got comes from who you think it did".

Authentication is how we prevent the man-in-the-middle attack.

Authentication is one of the hardest parts of cryptography, because the only truly secure way to do it is by driving to the other party yourself to establish a pre-shared key so you can do message authentication code. Or to share your public key with them if you are satisfied with the safety of post-quantum cryptography.

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Bhagavad Gita Updated 2025-07-16

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Josephson constant Updated 2025-07-16

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The inverse of the magnetic flux quantum.

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List of magnetic confinement fusion reactors Updated 2025-07-16

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Ferromagnetism Updated 2025-07-16

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The wiki comments: en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ferromagnetism&oldid=965600553#Explanation

The Bohr-van Leeuwen theorem, discovered in the 1910s, showed that classical physics theories are unable to account for any form of magnetism, including ferromagnetism. Magnetism is now regarded as a purely quantum mechanical effect. Ferromagnetism arises due to two effects from quantum mechanics: spin and the Pauli exclusion principle.

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Ising model Updated 2025-07-16

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Toy model of matter that exhibits phase transition in dimension 2 and greater. It does not provide numerically exact results by itself, but can serve as a tool to theorize existing and new phase transitions.

Each point in the lattice has two possible states: TODO insert image.

As mentioned at: stanford.edu/~jeffjar/statmech/intro4.html some systems which can be seen as modelled by it include:

the spins direction (up or down) of atoms in a magnet, which can undergo phase transitions depending on temperature as that characterized by the Curie temperature and an externally applied magnetic field
Neighboring spins like to align, which lowers the total system energy.
the type of atom at a lattice point in a 2-metal alloy, e.g. Fe-C (e.g. steel). TODO: intuition for the neighbor interaction? What likes to be with what? And aren't different phases in different crystal structures?

Also has some funky relations to renormalization TODO.

Bibliography:

stanford.edu/~jeffjar/statmech/intro4.html

Video 1.

The Ising Model in Python by Mr. P Solver

. Source. The dude is crushing it on a Jupyter Notebook.

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Magnetic dipole Updated 2026-08-21

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A tiny idealized magnet! It is a very good model if you have a small strong magnet interacting with objects that are far away, notably other magnetic dipoles or a constant magnetic field.

The cool thing about this model is that we have simple explicit formulas for the magnetic field it produces, and for how this little magnet is affected by a magnetic field or by another magnetic dipole.

This is the perfect model for electron spin, but it can also be representative of macroscopic systems in the right circumstances.

The intuition for the name is likely that "dipole" means "both poles are on the same spot".

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Superconducting magnet Updated 2025-07-16

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Applications: produce high magnetic fields for

magnetic resonance imaging, the most important commercial application as of the early 2020s
more researchy applications as of the early 2020s:
- magnetic confinement fusion
- particle accelerators

As of the early 2020s, superconducting magnets predominantly use low temperature superconductors Nb-Ti and Nb-Sn, see also most important superconductor materials, but there were efforts underway to create practical high-temperature superconductor-based magnets as well: Section "High temperature superconductor superconducting magnet".

Wikipedia has done well for once:

The current to the coil windings is provided by a high current, very low voltage DC power supply, since in steady state the only voltage across the magnet is due to the resistance of the feeder wires. Any change to the current through the magnet must be done very slowly, first because electrically the magnet is a large inductor and an abrupt current change will result in a large voltage spike across the windings, and more importantly because fast changes in current can cause eddy currents and mechanical stresses in the windings that can precipitate a quench (see below). So the power supply is usually microprocessor-controlled, programmed to accomplish current changes gradually, in gentle ramps. It usually takes several minutes to energize or de-energize a laboratory-sized magnet.

Video 1.

Superconductivity: magnetic separation by University of Cambridge

. Source.

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Lorentz covariance Updated 2025-07-16

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Same motivation as Galilean invariance, but relativistic version of that: we want the laws of physics to have the same form on all inertial frames, so we really want to write them in a way that is Lorentz covariant.

This is just the relativistic version of that which takes the Lorentz transformation into account instead of just the old Galilean transformation.

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Lorentz transform consequence: everyone sees the same speed of light Updated 2025-07-16

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OK, so let's verify the main desired consequence of the Lorentz transformation: that everyone observes the same speed of light.

Observers will measure the speed of light by calculating how long it takes the light going towards

+ x

cross a rod of length

L = x_{2} - x_{1}

laid in the x axis at position

X 1

TODO image.

Each observer will observe two events:

$(t_{1}, x_{1}, y_{1}, z_{1})$ : the light touches the left side of the rod
$(t_{2}, x_{2}, y_{2}, z_{2})$ : the light touches the right side of the rod

Supposing that the standing observer measures the speed of light as

c

and that light hits the left side of the rod at time

T 1

, then he observes the coordinates:

t_{1} x_{1} t_{2} x_{2} = T 1 = X 1 = \frac{L}{c} = X 1 + L

(1)

Now, if we transform for the moving observer:

t_{1}^{'} x_{1}^{'} t_{2}^{'} x_{2}^{'} = γ (t_{1} - \frac{v x _{1}}{c ^{2}}) = γ (x_{1} - v t_{1}) = γ (t_{2} - \frac{v x _{2}}{c ^{2}}) = γ (x_{2} - v t_{2})

(2)

and so the moving observer measures the speed of light as:

c^{'} = \frac{x _{2}^{'} - x _{1}^{'}}{t _{2}^{'} - t _{1}^{'}} = \frac{( x _{2} - v t _{2} ) - ( x _{1} - v t _{1} )}{( t _{2} - \frac{v x _{2}}{c ^{2}} ) - ( t _{1} - \frac{v x _{1}}{c ^{2}} )} = \frac{( x _{2} - x _{1} ) - v ( t _{2} - t _{1} )}{( t _{2} - t _{1} ) - \frac{v}{c ^{2}} ( x _{2} - x _{1} )} = \frac{\frac{x _{2} - x _{1}}{t _{2} - t _{1}} - v}{1 - \frac{v}{c ^{2}} \frac{x _{2} - x _{1}}{t _{2} - t _{1}}} = \frac{c - v}{1 - \frac{v}{c ^{2}} c} = \frac{c - v}{\frac{c - v}{c}} = c

(3)

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Length contraction Updated 2025-07-16

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Suppose that a rod has is length

L

measured on a rest frame

S

(or maybe even better: two identical rulers were manufactured, and one is taken on a spaceship, a bit like the twin paradox).

Question: what is the length

L^{'}

than an observer in frame

S^{'}

moving relative to

S

as speed

v

observe the rod to be?

The key idea is that there are two events to consider in each frame, which we call 1 and 2:

the left end of the rod is an observation event at a given position at a given time: $x_{1}$ and $t_{1}$ for $S$ or $x_{1}^{'}$ and $t_{1}^{'}$ for $S^{'}$
the right end of the rod is an observation event at a given position at a given time : $x_{2}$ and $t_{2}$ for $S$ or $x_{2}^{'}$ and $t_{2}^{'}$ for $S^{'}$

Note that what you visually observe on a photograph is a different measurement to the more precise/easy to calculate two event measurement. On a photograph, it seems you might not even see the contraction in some cases as mentioned at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrell_rotation

Measuring a length means to measure the

x_{2} - x_{1}

difference for a single point in time in your frame (

t 2 = t 1

So what we want to obtain is

x_{2}^{'} - x_{1}^{'}

for any given time

t^{'} 2 = t^{'} 1

In summary, we have:

L L^{'} = x_{2} = x_{2}^{'} - x_{1} - x_{1}^{'} t_{2}^{'} = t_{1}^{'}

(1)

By plugging those values into the Lorentz transformation, we can eliminate

t_{2} an d t_{1}

, and conclude that for any

t_{2}^{'} = t_{1}^{'}

, the length contraction relation holds:

L^{'} = \frac{L}{γ}

(2)

The key question that needs intuitive clarification then is: but how can this be symmetric? How can both observers see each other's rulers shrink?

And the key answer is: because to the second observer, the measurements made by the first observer are not simultaneous. Notably, the two measurement events are obviously spacelike-separated events by looking at the light cone, and therefore can be measured even in different orders by different observers.

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Time dilation Updated 2025-07-16

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One of the best ways to think about it is the transversal time dilation thought experiment.

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Twin paradox Updated 2025-07-16

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The key question is: why is this not symmetrical?

One answer is: because one of the twin accelerates, and therefore changes inertial frames.

But the better answer is: understand what happens when the stationary twin sends light signals at constant time intervals to each other. When does the travelling twin receives them?

By doing that, we see that "all the extra aging happens immediately when the twin turns around":

on the out trip, both twins receive signals at constant intervals
when the moving twin turns around and starts to accelerate through different inertial frames, shit happens:
- the moving twin suddenly notices that the rate of signals from the stationary twin increased. They are getting older faster than us!
- the stationary twin suddenly notices that the rate of signals from the moving twin decreased. They are getting older slower than us!
then when the moving twin reaches the return velocity, both see constant signal rates once again

Figure 1.
Twin paradox illustration with twins sending light signals at regular intervals
. Source.

Another way of understanding it is: you have to make all calculations on a single inertial frame for the entire trip.

Supposing the sibling quickly accelerates out (or magically starts moving at constant speed), travels at constant speed, and quickly accelerates back, and travels at constant speed setup, there are three frames that seem reasonable:

the frame of the non-accelerating sibling
the outgoing trip of the accelerating sibling
the return trip of the accelerating sibling

If you do that, all three calculations give the exact same result, which is reassuring.

Another way to understand it is to do explicit integrations of the acceleration: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/242043/what-is-the-proper-way-to-explain-the-twin-paradox/242044#242044 This is the least insightful however :-)

Bibliography:

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Representation theory of the Lorentz group Updated 2025-07-16

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Physics from Symmetry by Jakob Schwichtenberg (2015) page 66 shows one in terms of 4x4 complex matrices.

More importantly though, are the representations of the Lie algebra of the Lorentz group, which are generally also just also called "Representation of the Lorentz group" since you can reach the representation from the algebra via the exponential map.

Bibliography:

Physics from Symmetry by Jakob Schwichtenberg (2015) chapter 3.7 "The Lorentz Group O (1, 3)"

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Lorentz boost Updated 2025-07-16

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Two observers travel at fixed speed relative to each other. They synchronize origins at x=0 and t=0, and their spacial axes are perfectly aligned. This is a subset of the Lorentz group. TODO confirm it does not form a subgroup however.

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Indefinite orthogonal group Updated 2025-07-16

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Generalization of orthogonal group to preserve different bilinear forms. Important because the Lorentz group is

SO (1, 3)

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Truth table Updated 2025-07-16

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Concurrent Versions System Updated 2025-07-16

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It is said, that once upon a time, programmers used CSV and collaborated on SourceForge, and that everyone was happy.

These days, are however, long gone in the mists of time as of 2020, and beyond Ciro Santilli's programming birth.

Except for hardware developers of course. The are still happily using Perforce and Tcl, and shall never lose their innocence. Blessed be their souls. Amen.

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Git Updated 2025-07-16

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Perforce Updated 2025-07-16

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