ishalon

I read something about how atoms would fly apart if God didn't hold them together somewhere, but I don't know the answer, so why can two protons exist in an atom without repelling each other?

Silent Acorns

One of the fundamental forces of nature, the strong nuclear force, is responsible for holding the nucleus of an atom together. This is Nature's strongest force, but it acts only over VERY small distances (i.e. on the scale of the size of an atomic nucleus).

Now I'm just a civil engineer, so you might want to wait for a particle physicist to confirm this, but I believe that the strong force is not very well understood (it's the least understood force I believe). The theory goes something like this:

The strong force is an interaction between neutrons and protons at very close range. The interaction consists of the exchange of particles called "gluons". I don't think that anyone has ever directly detected a gluon, and I think this is because they only exist where protons and neutrons are very close together (i.e. like inside an atomic nucleus).

This probably won't impress a "God holds them together" theist.

ishalon

Nope, not at all

Doesn't impress me either but inspires me to learn more


The argument makes as much sense as a "why don't the atoms in a magnet fly apart" one, which i can't answer either :

tronvillain

Well, that one is answerable without even resorting to physics: If you line to magnets up south pole to north pole, you essentially get a bigger magnet - it's only if you line them up with like poles together that they fly apart. Knowing nothing but the macroscopic behavior of magnets, one could easily answer the question with something along the lines of "they don't fly apart because their magnetic fields are NSNS, not NSSN or SNNS."

Liquidrage

<a href="http://aether.lbl.gov/www/tour/elements/stellar/strong/strong.html" target="_blank">http://aether.lbl.gov/www/tour/elements/stellar/strong/strong.html</a>


If particle physics was easy to grasp you would see a lot more particle physicists. Too bad something doesn't make sense. I really wish a lot of things made sense to a lot of people, we'd see a lot less Creationists.

Answerer

Speaking of strong nuclear force, I wonder if gluons were experimentally discovered?

Late_Cretaceous

Think of it this way.
Take the N poles of two magnets and pretend they are protons. Coat each one with superglue. Move one towards the other and it will be repelled by magnetic force. If you slide one on the table, the other will actually move away. So, instead of letting the other rest on the table hold it down and force the two together so the superglue holds them. Voila, you have just imitated the Strong Force overcommming the electromagnetic force. Superglue is stronger then the magnets, but only acts when they are forced to contact one another. The only way to get protons to "stick" together is to force them close together. In nature that only happens in the core of a star, or during a supernova.

Leigh

I think it's related to the number of neutrons in a nucleus. There a proton/neutron ratio that atoms have to maintain - otherwise they decay to a more stable atom. The bigger the atom the higher the neutron/proton ratio has to be in order to maintain stability.

Steven S

Yes, from jet events and the fact that if you add up all the momenta of a the quarks in the proton it accounts for about fifty percent of the proton's momentum. The rest is due to the gluons it is thought.
As an aside, in quantum chromodynamics the gluons are the equivalent of the photons in quantum electrodynamics. But unlike photons, the gluons carry an extra charge called colour. This lets them interact and allows the formation of bound states of gluons called glueballs. Glueballs are very hard to observe and I don't think there is really strong evidence of their existence at this point.

Steven S

Starboy

Hmmmm, you may have something there:

Natural Scientist: I see that two protons do not fly apart when they are in a nucleus. Maybe there is a new force that holds them together. [Many experiments with nature later…] Eureka, I have found a new force. I shall call it the strong nuclear force.

Christian Scientist: I see that two protons do not fly apart when they are in a nucleus. Maybe there is a new force that holds them together. [Many prayers and bible sessions later…] Eureka, I see the light. God holds them together!

Yes, the Christians have invented a totally new approach to science. It has given us such masterpieces as Creationism and ID.

Praise the Lord!

Starboy