PHYS 1061 Lecture Notes - Lecture 37: Beta Decay, Electromagnetism, Electronvolt
Document Summary
Lecture - 37: nuclear energy, fission, fusion, the sun"s energy, what"s in a nucleus, the nucleus of an atom is made up of protons and neutrons. Each is about 2000 times the mass of the electron, and thus constitutes the vast majority of the mass of a neutral atom (equal number of protons and electrons) Proton by itself (hydrogen nucleus) will last forever. Neutron by itself will decay with a half-life of 10. 4 min. At close scales, another force takes over: the strong nuclear force: the strong force operates between quarks: the building blocks of both protons and neutrons. It"s a short-range force only: confined to nuclear sizes. And an anti-neutrino, a chargeless, nearly massless cousin to the electron: insight from the decaying neutron, another force, called the weak nuclear force, mediates these flavor changes. But it will do you little harm to think of it this way: mass-energy conservation:
