Comment by Tagbert
2 years ago
Then there are neutrons that are like protons with just a little bit more. It's sort of like infinity + 1. Is it bigger or is it equal?
(I know, infinity is not a number, really)
2 years ago
Then there are neutrons that are like protons with just a little bit more. It's sort of like infinity + 1. Is it bigger or is it equal?
(I know, infinity is not a number, really)
Yes, just what I was thinking: a neutron is actually more complicated than a proton, it's like a proton with an electron stuck inside it.
It makes me so angry that a neutron isn't a proton and an electron stuck together.
No. you can'tput an elelctron inside a proton to get a neutron. If you make them colide and you are lucky, one of the up quarks of the proton changes to a down quark, and now you get a neutron. Both up and down quarks are elelmentary particles as far as we know.
Isn't it weird how one elementary particle can become completely different elementary particle by "absorbing" (?) yet another elementary particle? How exactly does that happen?
Doesn't each particle species have it's own separate quantum field? How does one convert into another?
Electromagnetic field can convert into quantum electron field by spawning electron-positron pair from a single photon. But all those exchanges are just weird. It's really shocking that people managed to figure out the math that rules over this.
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Huh? With a little bit more what? Complexity? I expected that they would be pretty much the same except with a different mix of the different quarks and such (and also, unstable without having a nucleus to be a part of, and with a neutral charge)
I've heard neutrons described as a union of a proton and an electron based on masses. The reality is probably much more complex.
> neutrons described as a union of a proton and an electron based on masses
If you squish an electron and proton really hard, you'll get a neutron [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_degeneracy_pressure
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Certainly when a free neutron decays it releases a proton and an electron, but also (probably, hypothetically) an antineutrino.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_neutron_decay
The neutron and the proton are pretty similar. Of course, there's that tiny little bit of extra mass, but other than that:
Strong-force-wise, they are very hard to tell apart.
Weak-force-wise, you have the obvious changes in allowed interactions, but it's all stuff that's plain once you understand the theory of the weak force. No surprises.
Electromagnetism is actually the interesting one: just how neutral is this neutral garbage can? There are some interesting measurements to be made here. ILL in particular has done a lot with neutrons.
And the there's gravity. Gravity, you ask? Really? Yeah! If neutrons are really neutral, they don't interact electromagnetically, it's hard to get the strong force to come out and play, and the weak force only really does its thing here on the predictable* timescales of neutron decay... so all that's left is gravity. And thus, neutrons get used (or, I guess, more commonly just proposed...) as probes for gravitational effects! Fun, huh?
(* Mostly. See neutron lifetime controversy....)
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Wat?
Neutrons are (primarily) UDD while protons are (primarily) UUD. Although I do wonder if this charm+anticharm ghost exists in other hadrons
> Neutrons are (primarily) UDD while protons are (primarily) UUD.
Yes, this is correct.
> Although I do wonder if this charm+anticharm ghost exists in other hadrons
Yes, neutrons and all the other hadrons have virtual pairs of char-anticharm quarks. (And some of them have actual charm or anticharm quarks.)