8 ms·
I didn't realize it was kinetic energy, I thought most of the weight of an atom was due to the strong nuclear force
by blueorange8 3y ago
I didn't realize it was kinetic energy, I thought most of the weight of an atom was due to the strong nuclear force
- Xcelerate 3y agoYep, that’s correct. I misspoke (should have said “not due to rest mass”). You can think of this by analogy with the Coulomb Hamiltonian—it is the sum of a kinetic term and an electromagnetic potential term. With the nucleus, it’s similar except the potential term corresponds to the strong force and is even much higher than the kinetic term as you say.
- vecter 3y agoAccording to this article [0], you're right: > This property of the strong nuclear force is known as asymptotic freedom, and the particles that mediate this force are known as gluons. Somehow, the energy binding the proton together, the other 99.8% of the proton's mass, comes from these gluons. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/08/03/where-does-the-mass-of-a-proton-come-from/?sh=740b6d342e1d https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/08/03/wher...