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Let's say that a particle with no charge/neutral
charge such as a neutron makes contact and is
affected by one of any of the fundamental forces
(gravity, electromagnetic, weak, strong) Will the
contact between the particle and force be able to
change it's charge from a particle with no charge
to a particle that has a charge such as a protons
or electron? If so, what forces would do that to
what particles?
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Question Date: 2007-06-01 | | Answer 1:
Particles can't be converted into one another
just by adding one of the fundamental forces from
a distance. But now that I've said that, there
are two corrections to make... Some
particles are already under the influence of
multiple forces. For example, neutrons are held
together by the strong force. But they're also
made of an electron and a proton, which repel each
other by the weak force, making the neutron
unstable. Neutrons inside an atom are extremely
stable, and the strong force dominates. But a
lone neutron all by itself has a 50% chance of
breaking apart within about 15 minutes because of
the weak force. Neutrons decay into a proton, an
electron, and a third particle called an
antineutrino. So you could say that's a kind of
changing into a different particle (or three!),
but the forces were already there from the
beginning. The other correction would be
collisions. It's possible to convert many kinds
of particles into other kinds by high energy
collisions, or by collisions with antimatter.
This is why physicists create large particle
accelerators like SLAC or CERN. They study what
happens when different kinds of particles collide,
based on the new particles created by the
collision. If an electron meets an antielectron
(or positron), they'll both be annihilated and
give off a lot of energy. So you could say that
you're applying the strong force here, because
you're smashing two particles together so hard
that they are as close together as the protons and
neutrons in an atom. Hope this helps! | | Answer 2:
The short answer to your question is that we
can indeed get a proton from a neutron, but we
cannot JUST get a proton we must get other
particles too, so that the total charge of all the
particles we get is still 0. In nuclear physics,
there is a process called beta minus decay in
which a neutron decays into a proton, an electron,
and an anti-neutrino. The weak force is
responsible for this decay process. You can see
that the initial charge is 0 (for 1 neutron) and
the total final charge is 0 (1 for proton, -1 for
electron, 0 for anti-neutrino). Youre probably
wondering Whats an anti-neutrino? If you look up
nuclear processes, for example online at
Wikipedia, you will see that there are many kinds
of particles they dont teach you about in school,
and there are many interesting nuclear reactions,
like beta minus decay. Click Here to return to the search form.
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