The Science Station: electron

Elementary Particles - I

by Unknown - 02:23

The Uncuttable

Hey there, if you are following my posts you should remember about Democritus .

To a degree Democritus was correct: 'Matter is made of uncuttable pieces. But instead of Atomos we call these Elementary Particles. We are quite confident but not absolutely sure that the elementary particles are uncuttable. Electrons are elementary particles. However, protons and neutrons are not elementary particles; each is made up of three quarks that are elementary particles.

Particles Are Exactly Identical

One of the most important characteristics of an elementary particle is that each particle of each type is exactly identical For example, electrons are completely indistinguishable from one another. This does not mean that the electrons are very similar like "identical twins". In fact, nature herself cannot differentiate between any two electrons in the entire universe. As we will discuss in some upcoming posts, if there were even the smallest difference between electrons, atoms would collapse and life would not exist.

Same types of elementary particles are not twins but exactly same (these kids are)

Even though protons and neutrons are not elementary particles, they are also identical to all particles of their own types. This is because there is only one way to combine three quarks to make a proton and one another way to make a neutron. This characteristic of particles being exactly identical is remarkably outstanding.

Fermions: Constituents Of Matter

Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

Particles and divided into two groups: fermions and bosons. Bosons are the carriers of nature's forces and will be discussed in an upcoming post. Fermions are the building blocks of matter and are named after American physicist Enrico Fermi. He received the 1938 Nobel Prize in physics for his discoveries regarding the physics of nucleus.

Fermions are "antisocial" by behavior. They don't share their "turf" with any of their own kind. This trait gives matter its rigidity. Material objects are difficult to compress because they are made up of fermions that resist being squeezed together. If they didn't have this antisocial behavior, all Earth's atoms and all our body's atoms would collapse as gravity pulled everything together.

Division of Fermions with generation groups

Fermions are divided into two types (1) Quarks, which participate in the strong nuclear force and (2) Leptons which do not.

Elementary Fermions comprises a set of twelve particles 6 Quarks and 6 Leptons. They are in turn grouped into three generations, each containing two Quarks and two Leptons. We will discuss the special use here of word generations. (Read on)

Quarks and composition of protons

Quarks

Particles with the strong force (Jedi?) are all made of Quarks, the most elementary of the strongly interacting particles. The six Quarks are given in the figure:

The names are a bit fanciful but believe me, they have very little to do with the characteristics of these particles. None is more charming neither strange than other. Two up Quarks and one down Quark make a proton; two down Quarks and a down Quark make a neutron.

This much for this part of Elementary Particles, but don't worry I would be right back with the second part in this series. In the next part of Elementary Particles, we will discuss abut charged leptons, neutrinos, first generation rule, and will discuss the possibility of the presence of more elementary particle.

Until then be happy and keep experimenting.😊

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Lets Get Inside An Atom!!

by Unknown - 09:20

If you see closely you can see the Ant-Man

Have you watched the movie ant-man? It is one of my favorite movies of all times. The best part is when ant-man reaches the sub- atomic level.

What will it feel to reach the size of an atom? Let me bombard your imagination with a rough size of an atom. A billion carbon atoms lined up in a row would be about one foot long. Now, Imagine.

Let's keep this topic aside for a moment and talk the now, shall we? As small as atoms are, we now know they are not the smallest components of matter. Atoms can indeed be cut into smaller pieces and some of those pieces can be cut even further.

Don't take this image seriously, this is just imagination!

If we look inside an atom we will see a nucleus which has a positive electric charge. Outside the nucleus, there is a cloud of electrons which has negative electric charge. Opposite charges attract one another which holds the atom together.

If we imagine enlarging the nucleus until it becomes the size of a golfball the electron cloud would be over two miles wide. The electron cloud is as much as 1,00,000 times larger than the nucleus. Guess who is the dominating member of the atom family? It is the nucleus!! The nucleus contains almost all of the atom's mass - technically about 99.97% of the whole mass.

Inside an atom

It takes energy to "cut" an atom into pieces - to pull electrons away from the nucleus - but now that's easy to do. With a little more effort we can pull nuclei apart. Nuclei are composed of protons which have a positive electric charge and neutrons which have a zero charge. Rule Of Thumb ➔➔ "Each nucleus must have at least one proton so that its positive charge will attract electrons."

The number of protons in an atom's nucleus is its most important characteristic - Its Element Number. There are over 100 elements in the periodic table, each with a different physical and chemical properties.

Can you spot Gold and Lead?

Gold is element number 79 with 79 protons in its nucleus. Lead, element number 82 with 3 more protons than gold.See what a difference three little runts make.

The number of neutrons is generally similar to the number of protons, but it can vary. Two atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons, are the same element and have the same chemical properties, But are different Isotopes.

The most common elements have relatively light nuclei and many of these have equal numbers of protons and neutrons. Carbon has 6 of each, Nitrogen has 7 of each and Oxygen has 8 of each. In heavy nuclei, neutrons outnumber protons. In Their most common Isotopes Iron has 30 neutrons or 26 protons, while Uranium has 146 neutrons and 92 protons.

Generally, atoms have the same number of protons and electrons and therefore they are neutral - having zero net electric charge and atoms which are not electrically neutral i.e. have a different number of protons and electrons are called ions.

Normal hydrogen has the smallest one proton and zero neutrons. A rare but important isotope of hydrogen is deuterium. Its nucleus contains one proton and one neutron while it's the smallest atom, hydrogen accounts for 92% of all atoms and 74% of all atomic mass in the universe.

Helium is the element number 2, its normal isotope has two protons and two neutrons, helium accounts 7.5% of all atoms and 24% of all atomic mass.

Our Sun is composed of Helium and Hydrogen. (Check if you want)

Together hydrogen and helium make up almost everything we see in the universe. They account for 99.8% of all atoms and 98% of all atomic mass in the universe.

There's altogether a different story ongoing on Earth. About 10% of the ocean is hydrogen but less than 0.2% when it is looked up in the Earth's interior.

Helium is almost totally absent on Earth.

Fun Fact ➔➔

Helium was discovered on the Sun and then only on Earth.

But Akshat, you ask, What are we made up of? It's totally different than the composition of Earth, Stars, and Universe as a whole. By mass we are 65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10 % Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, 1.2% Phosphorus and 1.3% other elements.

Congratulation you have survived another lesson of Science. Good Going. You are indeed a fast learner.

3 comments

Elementary Particles - I

Particles Are Exactly Identical

Fermions: Constituents Of Matter

Quarks

Lets Get Inside An Atom!!

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