The Sub-Atomic Wonders: How do quarks in the nucleus of an atom (specifically the neutron) produce a nuclear "glue" AKA a nuclear force, and how does that obey the Law of Conservation of Mass?

By: Ian Davis

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Introduction:

As I was browsing the internet in search of fun facts and knowledge, I came across a interesting device called: a thermoelectric generator, more specifically a RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, ugh I know big words am I right?) and I was looking on how it utilizes the Seebeck Effect in order to produce a fair amount of energy. However I was more interested in the fuel it utilizes, Plutonium-238, a radioactive isotope capable of a half-life of about ~87.7 years which is pretty awesome.

But my curiosity did not stop there, and my brain went through a million year old conniption, how the heck do neutrons work? and why do the affect the status of an atom so much?

So throwback to my freshman year of Physical Science and the little lesson on how neutrons work: Neutrons utilize their properties to stabilize the potential kickback of the atomic forces (positive and negative respectively) of the proton and electron. The utilizes a little something called: Strong Nuclear Force, also know as Strong Interaction

My new question arises, how does this strong nuclear force get created?

My Thoughts Before Research:

Perhaps the answer lies Sub-Atomic; the quarks are the fundamental building blocks of most of the atoms contents. They are very hard to understand and they are resembled to look like geometric shapes that a 5 year old utilizes to learn geometry, but nevertheless they are incredibly important to the answer to the question so my first theory arises:

Leptons and Quarks:

Credit and found: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-4ae94e90ea8874719db45bb76f9eca50.webp

Theory 1 - The interaction of multiple quarks creates the nuclear glue:

Just like sandpaper and rough wood creates sawdust, maybe two quarks hugging produces some factory fresh nuclear glue. However one little problem arises, how the heck does the quark not change or perhaps lose mass after this, and even if, can the neutron after awhile just run out of juice? So I state the one and only: Law of Conservation of Mass which in short terms means that no matter what happens, matter cannot be created or destroyed in pretty much anything we know so far (this is mainly used in Chemistry) So if this IS matter being created and if quarks are witnessed with no change after a product is created, that means that this theory is false, unless of course the quarks are witnessing having a change, I wouldn't know, this is Ian before research.

Theory 2- The combination and actual mixing of quarks to produce nuclear glue:

Again, I am not entirely sure if quarks can just mix like its nothing without producing a serious enough reaction, even if they did react and were stable enough to create "glue" then how does the force and fundamental properties of this new product stabilize the whole atom, and how much is created to supply the demands of a simple atom? What about the attempt to stabilize isotopes? Sadly, another dead end, time for some good old research.

My Thoughts After Research:

There are four fundamental forces of the Universe: Gravity, Electromagnetic Force, The Weak Force, The Strong Force (creative I know right) However this Strong Force that we are talking about is really weird, in the fact that it gets weaker the closer it is to an object, and stronger at its maximum distance, perhaps ti so strong, that it is on a whole other level of pure strength and weirdness compared to the other three forces, possibly making it seem like something we have yet to understand since it would most likely be another field of science.

Credit and found: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Bosons-Hadrons-Fermions-RGB-pdf.pdf/page1-676px-Bosons-Hadrons-Fermions-RGB-pdf.pdf.jpg

Lets sum this up real quickly, nuclear force is a force that acts between protons and neutrons in a atom, the closer to each other, the stronger the connection is (Typically between one femtometre, or 10^{−15 meters}but worse being farther than 2.5 femtometres) So hadrons (particles composed from quarks) are made from the type of quarks that make it overwhelmingly positive (like protons) and therefore they repulse each other, so something needs to bind them together or we wouldn't have the protons we know and love today. They utilize nuclear force AKA the Strong Force, to keep themselves together, meaning that not only is nuclear force keeping nucleus' of the atom together, but is also keeping the protons together meaning that this force is so incredibly strong, it is 6 thousand trillion trillion trillion times stronger than gravity, and that just in a small amount because feel lucky that we dont have to deal with large amounts of that. (the ups and down quarks measured at +2/3 elementary charge and -1/3 elementary charge respectively, with one up quark, two down quarks forming a neutron, and two up quarks, one down quark forming a proton)

Credit and found: https://cdn1.byjus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Nuclear-Force-2.png

However, the best way to explain this is not in my own words, but the words of Alexander Bolonkin in this article: (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/nuclear-force) "To a large extent, this force can be understood in terms of the exchange of virtual light mesons, such as the pions. Sometimes the nuclear force is called the residual strong force, in contrast to the strong interactions which are now understood to arise from QCD." So the exact answer, is well not a direct answer but however a long hell drawn out explanation of a whole mess of things to understand a relatively simple concept. Although saying that gluons are the main transmitter of this strong force, it still is not a direct answer to the main question.

Explained Simply:

To look at these things in a more simple way, I compared it to a macro (bigger) scale, as in how is adhesive created and what are its fundamental properties. Imagine you have these two strong magnets, and without using any other device, you can only connect those two pieces with some simple glue you find off the shelf. Now you have a load of this glue, its effective and it's easy to make. However when you use this glue, it just sucks, as in the magnets are repelling each other and they just won't stick. So you decide to use this new and very strong type of glue and once you try it on the magnets, it kinda works, however you pull these two magnets a little away from each other and it is now the strongest bond in the room, meaning that those two magnets aren't coming away from one another probably ever again.

Now using that explanation is far-fected and kinda hard to understand however I think it nails down the point and process of how it is like with Strong Force, but again far-fetch. Now the positive and negative forces are always sticking together because like they say "opposites attract" or its like a pile of dirt with a big hole in the ground, they just meet each others needs. Nevertheless there is both positives and negatives that don't like to be with their same kind, again like two big piles of dirt, or two big holes in the ground, they just don't match. But there are these big balls of just positive particles, that makes no sense right? they would repel each other right? Which is exactly correct. They do repel each other but something is keeping them together, something strong and unrelenting, and that 'something' is Strong Force which holds these particles together with a respective amount of spaces between each other.

Caption: A Feynman diagram of a strong proton–neutron interaction mediated by a neutral pion. Time proceeds from left to right.

Credit and found: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Pn_scatter_pi0.svg/600px-Pn_scatter_pi0.svg.png

Sources:

1. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/radioisotope-thermoelectric-generator/

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction

4. https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/66618/what-roles-do-neutrons-play-in-an-atom

5. https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry_Textbook_Maps/Supplemental_Modules_(Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry)/Atomic_Theory/Dalton's_Atomic_Theory/Lavoisier's_Law_of_Conservation_of_Mass

6. https://www2.lbl.gov/abc/wallchart/chapters/02/5.html

7. https://www.space.com/four-fundamental-forces.html

8. https://byjus.com/physics/nuclear-force/

9. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Particles/proton.html

10. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Particles/expar.html

11. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/nuclear-force

12.

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