The Strong and Weak Nuclear Force

        Went for my evening walk listening to a lecture on “The Strong and Weak Nuclear Force”. The Strong Force is what holds the nuclei of atoms together. When larger nuclei, on the periodic table of over one hundred, form, the strong force begins to break down and isn’t strong enough to hold everything together. The strong force causes gluons to fly back and forth between protons and neutrons to hold them together in the nucleus of an atom. The electron is not affected because of the electrostatic force. The Weak Nuclear force has to do with decay of neutrons and the cause of radioactivity. I’ll just leave it at that for now and I’ll re-listen to it again since there was so much more in the lecture.

        Went for my evening walk listening to the lecture again on the “Strong and Weak Force” so I could get a little more info out of it. The Strong Force also extends (by way of Gluons) down into the realm of Quarks which protons and neutrons (Hadrons) are made of. A proton is made up of two “up” quarks with an electric charge of +2/3 and one “down” quark with an electric charge of -1/3, which add up to a +1 charge for the proton. A neutron is made up of one “up” and two “down” quarks and does not have a charge. A free neutron will over a short period of time decay into a proton, and electron, and an antineutrino. The Strong force at this small of a level acts upon the color (charge properties) of the quark. At least this is how I understood it.