Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: ebzZzZ on 08/01/2004 05:24:59
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they say the nucleus of an atom is made of protons
and neutrons. but if you think about it another way
you could say protons and neutrons come out of
the nucleus?
ebz
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I think a nuclear physicist would beg to differ !
Electrons come out of the nucleus when it undergoes beta decay.
Chris
"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
- Groucho Marx
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sorry was being a bit specific :)
i take your point, but you can't deny
the logic. has anyone ever seen the
nucleus of an atom?
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Have you ever seen a piece of DNA ? No but I suspect you believe that it is inside nearly all of your cells ?
As we begin to deal with more complex areas of science it is inevitable that we will have to contrive models to explain them and to give a visible dimension to the invisible to assist in our comprehension.
chris
"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
- Groucho Marx
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Actually, I believe newer really high power scanning electron microscopes can resolve the nucleus of an atom.
Also ,experiments that measure the mass of protons, neutrons, and electrons coincide with the calculated masses of the elements. (i.e. if you added the measured masses of 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons, you'd get the measured mass of carbon-12) I'd say that's pretty good indication that there isn't much else inside the atom. If it has no mass, then it's energy and is not subject to the attractive nuclear forces that hold the atom together, and thus is not part of the atom.
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ok let me put it this way :)
if you have a necleus of say helium with 2 protons
and say 1 neutron, but i think helium may have 2, anyway
protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. what's to
say the nucleus of the atom isn't made of all the quarks.
say the proton in the nucleus breaks down into it's constituant parts along with all the parts of the other P's and N's in the nucleus, like a sea of quarks.
and only when all the right bits come together inside the nucleus
can it expel a neutron say.
get my drift? i hope so took a bit of thinking :)
ebz
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I have no idea what you're talking about eb. I was going to say though, we know that protons and neutrons are made of quarks in the same way we know the earth has a core and a mantle and all that, by indirect detection =)
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What we already know about nuclear physics contraindicates this sort of behavior. Quarks are semi-charged particles and can only interact in certain ways, and I don't believe a mobile sea of them is one of those ways. (more on quarks at http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/quarks.html) Quarks aren't just a fanciful theory based on fantasy....predictions about the behavior of matter using quark theory have been proven correct in many experiments. I'm not trying to say you're absolutely wrong, but maybe it would be wise to thoroughly examine the mathematics and logic behind current theory before proposing new ones?
We should be able to resolve the nucleus in a few years anyway....the size of a nucleus is about 10^-14 m and the best electron microscope we have right now can resolve about 5x10^-11 m. We're almost there, so you'll find out at some point in your life. ;)
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you can't really see neutrons or anything, because the thing you bounce off is almost the same size :P
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