3 ms·
The problem with the strong force is that it doesn't have some nice tidy description, like the inverse square law for the electrostatic force. It's spin depend
by pfdietz 2y ago
The problem with the strong force is that it doesn't have some nice tidy description, like the inverse square law for the electrostatic force.
It's spin dependent, and not just involving interactions of pairs of nucleons. There are at least three-nucleon terms in the potential. It looks like something accidental, not elegant or designed. It just "happens" to give stable nuclei that end up allowing something like us to have come into existence. I get the feeling of anthropic effects on display.
- jcghgxt 2y agoI don't get this. Do nucleons bind and hold together because of the strong force or gravity? I thought strong force only keeps quarks together via gluon exchange
- pfdietz 2y agoNucleons in nuclei are bound by the strong force. It's (vaguely) analogous to the way the electromagnetic force still binds neutral molecules together (van der Waals force). At the scale of the nucleus, gravity is many, MANY orders of magnitude weaker.