Connecting Nuclear and Particle Physics

[Macavity]

Connecting Nuclear and Particle Physics. I think there is sometimes
a bit of confusion between sibling sciences. For the public notably! ?

But a FUN connection? (Not ALL stuff had a explanation... until now!)
https://www.livescience.com/64844-quarks-emc-effect-nucleus.html

Good / Interesting stuff... and notably WELL explained in the Video... ?

[Space Hopper]

I just wish i was clever enough to actually understand it.

But i'm not. ?

[Macavity]

Don't worry... I don't understand MUCH of the esoteric discussion here...
And arguably I might justifiably be expect to do so! lol. If anyone feels
really "out of it" I/others may have a go? I have no "pride" these days! ?

[Macavity]

Might help... Much of it resembles Snooker (balls)! ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_nucleus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_model
My onetime passion anyway. ?

[saac]

Chris, don't know if you have seen this but I find it fascinating and confusing.   I remember my teacher at school saying "we will never be able to see the atom it's far too small".  Then a few years back IBM did this - while we are strictly still not "seeing" the atom (wavelength of light way too large), the ability to image and manipulate individual atoms blows my mind.  I show the video in class now and to me it raises so many questions about "what am I actually looking at".  The accompanying video about how "Atom Boy" was made is also worth a watch, it explains how they did it..  If I have understood it correctly the atoms are imaged by sensing their associated electric field with a proximity probe.  The value of the field is then used to represent the position  of and to render a representative atom.  I'd be interested to hear what you make of it Chris.  

Jim 

 

[saac]

Here's the "how they did it" video.

Jim

 

[saac]

One of the questions that struck me straight away was to do with the ripples that appear in the movie.  Any guesses what they are - here's the explanation - it's just amazing, in fact it's just beautiful   

Jim  

 

 

[Macavity]

Intriguing, Jim! I have to concede: "I knew it was Atoms" (lol!) because I've seen images
like that before? (Amateur) Astronomy helped re. recognising the... "diffraction thingies"?  ?

Not sure that I would have guessed the EXACT truth: "Electrons trapped on the surface"...
without explanation! I feel many non-scientists would need much more background info? ?

That said, I share the sentiments (personal shared prejudice!) of one of the protagonists:
"If I can persuade a 1000 kids to do science rather than go into law school, I'd be happy!" ?

I suppose (like a few of us here?) I have my OWN ideas re. the best way to "convert" folks
to science... or rather STEM subjects generally! If you think *I* am incomprehensible? LOL ?



Hey, (genuine) KUDOS Prof. Cox! It was actually one of his predecessors that inspired
me to do Particle Physics. But I'm not sure I would have taken much from the above?
Hey, times change... audiences change... we now have the whole "Science Fan" thing! ?

For me, the "joy of science" is that so many different fields use the same BASIC ideas: 
Molecules... Atoms... Atomic Nuclei... Protons & Neutrons... Quarks... (Strings maybe)!
For Astronomers the basic ideas of "Spectroscopy" underlie much of this... Electrons...
Energy Levels? A *qualitative* understanding of "The Hydrogen Atom" helps in this? ?



Of course it gets more *complicated* as we progress to smaller "condensed" matter?
But many *analogies* still hold... Predictions can be made using experimental input...
A lot of the basic ideas can be "recycled" -- Even down to the "quantum" level etc. ?

[George Jones]

Yikes! I am enough of a Geek that I recognize the equation to which Cox points. It comes from Feynman's path integral formulation of quantum theory.