What is a Strong Force?
Strong force is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe. Other forces are gravitational force, weak force, and electromagnetic force. Also, as the name suggests, it is the strongest of all four forces, 100 times stronger than electromagnetic force, million times stronger than weak nuclear force, and 100 trillion trillion trillion times stronger than gravity. The strong force acts at a very, very small distance only, it has a very short range. The strong force is responsible for keeping the nucleons (protons and neutrons) together inside the nucleus of an atom.
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| Credit: Science facts |
The strong force is responsible for
The strong force is responsible for holding proton-proton and proton-neutron together in the nucleus. The nucleus is a dense region of the atom around which the electrons form an electron cloud. Since protons are positively charged, they repel each other. But this repulsion is neutralized, and protons are held together with this strong force.
Strong force and fundamental particles.
If we go further into nucleons, we find protons and neutrons are made up of even tiny particles called quarks. Neutrons consist of two down and one up quarks, and Proton consists of one down and two up quarks. The strong force also acts on these quarks. Strong force in the form of tiny, vibrating strings connects these quarks According to quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the quarks interact with each other by exchanging particles called gluons. Gluons are strong force-carrying particles according to 'the standard model of particle physics'. One can imagine the tiny, vibrating string that connects quarks as an exchange of force-carrying Gluons.
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| credit: NASA |
Another peculiar thing about strong force is it gets stronger as the distance between particles increases but for a certain range or certain distance. This is a very unlikely behavior of strong force from other forces, like gravity and electromagnetism, and this phenomenon is called 'confinement'. This urges us to think of strong force as vibrating strings as the distance between quarks increases, so the strong force, just like a rubber band until a certain point where energy becomes favorable to create new quark and anti-quark pair and preventing the existence of individual quarks, so quarks never exist individually. This phenomenon is called 'quark confinement'.
The interesting property of Quarks: color charge
There is another interesting property of quarks known as a color charge (This has nothing to do with colors, as we see. Rather, it is just a name given to the property). There are three colour charges red, green and blue. And their corresponding anti-red, anti-green, and anti-blue charts
A combination of quarks must always be colour-neutral. It means that particles form from quarks or current neutral, like protons.
Where is strong force?
The strong force is in every cell of your body, every air molecule, and every atom in the universe it is what makes an atom by binding neutrons, protons, and quarks.
We can find obvious traces of strong nuclear force in stars and even in our Sun. Strong force facilitates nuclear reactions that fuse hydrogen atoms into helium and other heavier elements. This process is called nucleosynthesis.
Another prime example of a strong nuclear force is a neutron star. where the nuclear reaction dies off in a star the star starts to collapse in its own gravity forming a dense neutron Star. These neutron stars are held together by a strong force, which prevents them from collapsing further into the black hole.
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| Credit: NASA |
How have you applied the knowledge that we have about strong force?
Nuclear energy is a great example of the application of this knowledge. We produce about 10% of global electricity using nuclear energy. We basically create process called a nuclear fission which is different from nuclear fusion. In nuclear fusion, the nucleus of the atom splits into two or more nuclei (nuclei is the plural form of the nucleus) along with releasing a tremendous amount of energy this is the same working principle that we use in creating atomic bombs. Watch the below video to learn about Nuclear energy.
Where we don't understand strong force?
Quark confinement as mentioned before Is that Quarks is never isolated but why? remains a mystery. We probably have a theoretical framework, but this becomes a complex phenomenon that is not yet completely understood.
Though we completely do not understand strong force why it exists or what causes it? We understand that it is the force that binds nucleons and is a very, very strong force and is confined to a specific smaller range and we are also able to use it, and probably use it for the beneficiary of humanity.
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