Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Orbit on 21/09/2012 07:31:38
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Protons and Neutrons are quite similar in mass, and manage to have a strong binding force. The only real difference is that the proton managed to get electric properties such as charge.
Why do you guys think neutrons never got charge? and if neutrons have no electric charge, then shouldn't neutron star's (which are largely composed of just neutrons, with a lack of protons to co exist with) would have no electric field.
What do you guys think?
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Hello Orbit and welcome to Naked Science Forum
"Why" in physics can be difficult and are normally only answered by going to a new level of complexity or depth - and this is the case here. Protons and neutrons are not fundamental particles - they are made up of smaller particles called quarks . There are 6 sorts (called flavours) of quark in 3 pairs - up & down, charm & strange, and top & bottom. The first of each of those three pairs have a +2/3 charge and the second of each has a -1/3 charge. The Charm& Strange and Top&Bottom are heavy, exotic and only found in high energy collisions/situations; the Up and the Down are two of the most important constituents of all matter.
The proton is made up of 3 quarks - two Up (+2/3 * 2) and one Down (-1/3 * 1) which gives a total charge of +1. The neutron is also make of three quarks (thus it has a very similar size and mass) - but it is made up of two Down (-1/3 * 2) and one Up (+2/3 * 1) which gives a total charge of 0. These quarks are held together very tightly to form the particles that for many years we thought were indivisible.
You can read more here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark
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What you're asking is what 'charge' is, right? And why some particles have it and others don't. Then we're both wondering :) If one look at the structures found, and the idea of symmetries as explored mathematically, we can at least define 'charge' from those, although, without really knowing what it is 'in itself'. Charge is a property of particles under certain transformations from one symmetry group to another.
Or maybe, charge is what's not there?
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Protons and Neutrons are quite similar in mass, and manage to have a strong binding force. The only real difference is that the proton managed to get electric properties such as charge.
The atom of Caesium Cs and the caesium ion Cs+ have pratically the same mass. Why one is charged and another is not? [;)]