The Fundamentals, Part 3: The Strong Force

Part three is our first venture into relatively obscure physics. I’d reckon that not many people could accurately describe what either weak or strong forces do. Luckily, you won’t be one of those people. 

Years ago, when quantum science was first being explored, physicists started discovering a couple of very, very small pieces of matter and energy that made up everything, particles like protons, electrons, and neutrons. They called these the ‘elementary particles’ because of their special status as the building blocks of the universe. All of this progress led to more accurate models of the atom, and it was finally deduced that all atoms contained a nucleus in the center with a certain number of protons and neutrons, as well as an electron cloud surrounding this core. 

And for this, there was much rejoicing.

But how did the protons and neutrons stay together?

The Fundamentals, Part 2: Electromagnetism, a.k.a. "The positive side has the bump, right?"

Ah, electromagnetism. This fundamental interaction of matter is so much more important than most would believe. Like gravity, the effects of electromagnetism have always been known by humankind, in one form or another. However, it wasn’t until way, way later that we found out what it truly was, or how integral it is to the existence of... well, everything. It took a man by the name of James Clerk Maxwell to get science on its way. He published his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873, pointing out several interconnected properties between the two phenomena, like: 

Point 1: Electric charges of different sign (positive, negative) attract, and like ones repel. The same goes with magnetic poles: north pulls south, and pushes away other norths. 

Point 2: Running an electric current through a wire creates a magnetic field. Likewise, moving a magnet through a loop of wire creates an electric current. 

What he had described was the newly understood phenomena called... electromagnetism. 

The Fundamentals, Part 1: Gravity

With all the talk happening on PiPT about fictitious motion, antimatter transformations, and overly-complicated analyses of the tides, it’s about time that we went back and explored the bare necessities of the Universe, those few things it absolutely needs to be what it is today. These absolutes are called the fundamental interactions of nature: 

• Gravity
• Electromagnetism
• Strong Force
• Weak Force

They're the four things that keep everything in one piece; without them, nothing, not even atoms, would exist. 

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1. Gravity

Good ol' gravity. It's the force that most of us are probably most familiar with, though it's the weakest of the four by far. Its effects have been known for about as long as humans have been on this Earth, yet it took a long time for someone to truly see it as its own entity. Aristotle was one of the first; he described gravity as the movement of objects to their 'natural place'. Earth went the lowest, water floated on that, air floated on that. Pretty straightforward. 

News: Quantum Dots

For anyone who's interested, here's an article expanding on my post about Quantum Dots, and how they can be used in solar cells:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-tiny-tech-big-results-quantum.html