Fundamental Forces of Physics: The Strong Force

There are four fundamental forces of physics. Gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. These forces, also known as fundamental interaction, are modeled in fundamental physics as patterns of relations in physical systems, evolving over time,  that appear not reducible to relations among entities more basic. In this post, only one will be covered, the strong force.
The strong force is not something you interact with every day, but it is what holds all atoms together. So, it's kind of a big deal. Not only does it hold the atom's nucleus together, but it also keeps the quarks inside the protons and neutrons from separating. Sometimes, this is called color force.
Neutrons and protons are both a type of particle called a hadron. Hadrons are made up of even smaller particles called quarks. Quarks are a fundamental constituent of matter, and by fundamental  I mean that they cannot be broken down into other particles. They are a fundamental constituent. Quarks, and their friends leptons (including electrons), are the most basic components of matter in the universe. 
Among a quark's many weird traits, they all have a property called color. Color is how physicists describe the three different quantum states that quarks can exist in. One we call red, one we call blue, and one we call green. All hadrons are colorless, meaning that the color components of the quarks have to cancel each other out. This is analogous to the way that when we mix red, blue, and green light, it makes white light. Protons and neutrons are each make of three quarks, which means that protons and neutrons can only contain one quark of each color at one time. 
To keep things annoying, quarks are constantly changing color, and the process that lets them do that is also what holds the quarks together. It's by exchanging some particles called gluons. Each fundamental force has its own special 'force carrier' that is exchanged between particles that are controlled by that force. The gluon is the force carrier for the strong force. It has no mass, no electric charge, but it does have color. So as gluons are passed between quarks they change color. They do this in such a way so that the color of the quarks always cancel each other out. 
Color force doesn't work like other forces. Color force acts on the quarks as though the gluonic exchange were forming rubber bands between them. Quarks can move around inside the hadron, but if they stray too far, the color force becomes very strong and pulls them back. This is why quarks cannot be observed by themselves. It also explains why protons and neutrons are extraordinarily stable. 
The strong force is so strong that a residual effect of this is that it's able to hold the whole nucleus together. That is the nuclear force, and that's what we're going to cover next.
If you look at an atom of helium, its nucleus consists of two protons and normally two neutrons, and the thing is, those protons hate each other. Those protons want to get away from each other more than anything else because they are both positively charged. But yet, they exist right next to each other in probably the tiniest space you could ever think of. They do it because of strong force. The strand of this force working in the nucleus is called... you guessed it. The nuclear force. 
The nuclear force is strongly repulsive at very short distances. This repulsion helps give atomic nuclei their size. The nuclear force is also strongly attractive at slightly larger distances. So the protons and the neutrons are being both kept apart AND bound together by the strong nuclear force. This is why so much energy is released when an atom is split.
Nuclear force is seen as a residual force brought on by the even stronger version of the strong force, called color force. Sound familiar? There is so much energy in the nucleus that it basically forms another kind of force carrier outside of the hadron called a pion. Pions themselves are made of two quarks. 
NOW because color force is being exerted within the pions, and the pions are being exchanged between the hadrons, the pions essentially make it possible for color force to be exerted between hadrons. Pions, though, transmit a scaled down version of the strong force.
This is weird, because hadrons shouldn't partisipate in color interaction. So a pion is like a bus that drives a highschool football team from one county to the next, facilitating a game that would ever happen, otherwise.
 Except in this case, the game is keeping the entire universe together, essentially. 

DIY: Cabbage Litmus Paper

       People often talk about a litmus test, or a way of getting a really quick check on something or someone. We use it normally in pretty superficial situations like politics or speed dating. (Is this person liberal or conservative? Team Jacob or team Edward?) But if you know anything about chemistry you know that a litmus test is actually a method for determining the pH of a substance: its alkalinity or acidity. pH is the concentration of protons or hydrogen ions in a solution. Protons and Hydrogen ions are the same thing. Since hydrogen is just an electron and a proton, if a hydrogen atom loses an electron to become an ion, it is then left with just a  proton.

       The more protons you have in a solution, the more acidic it is. If you have a really high concentration of protons, or low pH, it can be very dangerous, reaction-wise. That solution will bond with whatever it can to get more electrons to complete its outermost electron shell. A really low concentration of protons, or high pH, the solution will want more protons, that, again, it will bond with whatever it can and become extremely dangerous. 

       You want a pH of about 7. That's what we call neutral, and that's what water is, a nice stable amount of protons. You don't need a laboratory supply company to get everything you need to conduct your own litmus test. All you need is a trip to the grocery store. Get yourself a purple cabbage, and some coffee filters.

Cut the raw cabbage into small pieces until you have about a cups worth.    

Spread the cabbage evenly on a microwave safe plate.

Microwave the cabbage for 3-5 minutes until the leaves are slightly soft.

Soak up the juices from the cabbage until the coffee filter is completely soaked. If you need more juices, just cook another cup or so of cabbage.

Lay the paper out to dry for and hour or two.

One small cabbage made 10 sheets of litmus paper. When dry, the paper should be a brighter purple than it was when the papers were soaked in the cabbage juice. I cut the papers into strips. I easily got 20 or so strips from one coffee filter.

If the solution turns red or pink, the solution is an acid; or has lots of protons. I used some lime juice as my acid.

If the paper turns blue or green, the solution is a base. I used a mixture of baking soda and water.

Another base is glass cleaner, which contains ammonia.

Now, why does the cabbage juice change colors? 

       Purple cabbage contains a large amount of anthocyanin; one of the most common pigments in the plant kingdom. It's what makes pansies purple, blood oranges bloody, and autumn leaves turn red. As it happens, anthocyanin changes colors depending on the pH of it's environment; red-pink in acidic solutions, and greenish-blue in basic solutions. The pH of cabbage juice itself is about neutral, so the anthocyanin appears in its neutral color; purple. This all makes sense when you consider that the litmus paper used in labs is made from a similar process. It's infused with a natural dye found in some lichens that change color in much the same way. 

       Now you can conduct your own real litmus tests at home. While it's not going to help you with much, you may have just enough cabbage left to make a delicious coleslaw. If you have any other ideas for experiments, comment down below.

Enjoy!

What's the Matter with Dark Matter?

       A lot of what makes up the universe cannot be seen with a telescope because it doesn't emit or absorb light. Not to be confused with dark energy, dark matter is a type of matter that is said to account for a large portion of our universe's total mass.

       Since dark matter can't be detected, you may ask why we even think it exists. Well, we can infer its existence from things that we CAN detect, like light and other forms of radiation; plus all the things that it bounces off of to let us see them. The first clues to dark matter's existence came in the 1930's, when astronomers realized they could weigh a far away galaxy by by plotting the way massive objects inside it moved in relation to each other. This gravitational action could tell you how much mass there was in the galaxy. The galaxies seemed to be weighing a lot more than the stuff inside of them would account for. There just simply wasn't enough stuff in the galaxies to make the stars and such act the way they were acting. There had to be something massive, yet undetectable inside of them that explained how they moved and also what was keeping them together. It took decades of brilliant people to build amazing instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope to re-think the whole enchilada. But today, physicists figure that dark matter accounts for about 23 percent of the known universe. 

       So what is dark matter? Unfortunately, nobody knows. We're pretty sure that it's not just regular, everyday matter (also called baryonic matter, like protons and neutrons). The most commonly held view is that it's made up of exotic subatomic particles that were created in a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second by the big bang. It might be all around us. We could be swimming in dark matter and we would have no idea because it's particles don't interact with ordinary matter.

       Now, the Higgs boson might hold the key to dark matter.  The Higgs, remember, is a particle that was predicted by the standard model of particle physics, the theory that helps us understand the behavior of matter in the universe. The discovery of the Higgs would mean that there was something larger... the Higgs field; and invisible field that basically gives particles mass when they interact with it. 
       
       So even though dark matter and ordinary matter probably can't interact, some scientists think that the Higgs might be a connection between the two. Because it gives mass to ordinary particles in the universe, it would probably also be giving mass to whatever makes up dark matter, seeing that dark matter is also... well, massive. So unlocking the secrets of the Higgs, could end up making dark matter a lot less mysterious.

       So as of now, scientists are figuring ways to detect dark matter. But until then, dark matter will be just as mysterious as the Easter Island's moai. 

Is There an Edge?

       Following the Big Bang, the universe continued to expand, for there was no unbalanced force to stop it, other than gravity creating a few planets here and there. The universe is expanding quicker than it began, and is speeding up greatly.

       An expanding universe generally has a cosmological horizon which marks the boundary of the part of the universe that an observer can see given that photons have to travel from the object to us, before we can see them. This is also called the observable universe, which is always and forever changing due to our technological advances. The observable universe is a sphere and centers the observer, meaning that each and every one of us is in fact, the center of the observable universe. Radiation emitted by objects beyond the cosmological horizon never reaches the observer, because the space in between the observer and the object is expanding too rapidly.

       The universe is said to be "everything there is" but really, who is there to say there isn't something there outside of everything? The universe is really just this evenly dense ever expanding mass of stuff that we can study and that we have learned many fascinating things about!

       A lot of people say the universe is expanding, it HAS to be expanding into something, and if it's expanding into something there has to be an edge. NO NO NO.

       The universe is not expanding in the way a human being with the average vocabulary would think. It's just expanding. Let me explain. The Big Bang was not an explosion in the way we think of it. There was no single point that which matter came flying out in all different directions. After the cosmological event of the Big Bang, every bit of matter was evenly spaced, and remains that way, other than that gravity makes little clumps now and then.

       When it is said that the universe is expanding it is meant that the fabric of the universe is expanding. Stretching like a piece of elastic. If you were to find the point of which the Big Bang started it would be everywhere. (As I said, no single point)

       Obviously we're not sure if the universe is infinite, though current data suggests that it is. SO it is quite possible that the universe is infinite, and expanding, which just confuses everyone who crosses the path of this subject.

If there is an edge, we ill never see it, and never know it. One possible explanation to this is the polyhedral theory, which I may explain at a later date.

Be sure to input your thoughts on the poll I have added.

Schrodinger's Cat: The Misconceptions

       The scenario of Schrodinger's Cat has somehow made it into pop culture and taken on a life of it's own; and taken on a whole new meaning.

       In the 1920's it was tough for physicists; up until then it had been just plain old Newtonian physics. This is how objects react to various forces when under other forces. Then, along comes all this research about subatomic particles and how they don't react predictably at all. A new form of physics had developed by this time: quantum mechanics. 

       Subatomic particles are funny. The more you try to observe them, the less and less natural they behave. Now, Schrodinger's Cat is a scenario relating super position to something more understandable than electrons and such, and it goes like this:

       A cat is placed in a steel bunker with a vile of deadly gas for an hour. The gas is attached to a hammer, a Geiger counter and a little bit of some radioactive material. There is then a 50/50 chance that an atom of the radioactive material may decay, releasing some radiation within that hour. The Geiger counter, if the material decays, will then release the hammer, shattering the vile of poisonous gas, thereby killing the cat.

       This scenario poses the question: is the cat alive or dead? 

       According to quantum mechanics; each one of the radioactive atoms would be in a super position of being both decayed and not decayed at the same time. Because an atom is a quantum object, this is the way they'll act, but because they're not able to be observed the state of that atom will be revealed when the bunker is opened.

       So before the bunker is opened, is the cat in both a state of being dead and alive at the same time? 

       Because a cat is not a quantum object, like a subatomic particle is, or an atom is, the cat has to be in one state of the other. So the cat in not in a state of super position, even if you were not to open the bunker. 

       The problem I have with this scenario of super position is the fact that even though the particle isn't being observed by anyone, it is technically being observed by the cat, making the atom of radioactive stuff force itself into a state of being, or not being. This can be resolved using the theory of quantum physics, or the multiple universe theory. Where, for every action there is another universe formed that uses the opposite reaction. (Sound familiar?)

       So, hopefully, by now you realize that Schrodinger's Cat was not to show that zombie cats exist, but it is to show that super position relates to quantum objects, and that the cat was just something to make the public get the idea of super position. Even though the scenario has a few flaws, it is a great way to understand quantum mechanics. 

       I hope that resolved the misconceptions of what killed the cat.

Quick Post: Black Hole Cannibalism

       If two black holes were to be caught together within distance in which they would collide, the two would not eat each other. Or even repel at all for that matter. The two black holes would collide causing one, larger, denser black hole.

       Many would say that the pictures falsely resemble the  situation, that, if this were to occur, the holes wouldn't be bright, but dark, massive spheres. The fact is quite the contrary; the black holes would be the brightest thing around! Sucking all the photons from the stars around it, the star material would be in a whirlpool around the black hole, creating something so bright, it would outshine all stars around it, until all the evidence was gone. 

        Observing this pictures makes think. What if life was produced in the location of these collisions? What if that was us. 

What if?

The Space-Time Continuum

       In physics, space-time is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Space-time is usually interpreted with space as existing in three dimensions and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions.

Space-time can be present in three ways:

• as a dimension,
• as a fabric,
• or as a woven energy.

       In the theory that space-time is present in the form of a dimension, space-time can be accessed through wormholes. This theory has no evidence, as wormholes are not known to exist. But wormholes are thought to exist in black holes or places beyond our observable universe.

       If space-time were to exist as a fabric, it would surround the universe, allowing us to travel through it, like a bullet through a loaf of bread. With this theory, traveling back in time would be impossible. If time was finite, then space-time would be able to be sliced like a loaf of bread; showing each individual moment on each slice.

       Space-time woven into physical space creates gravity, but otherwise, makes little to no sense. Gravity, in this theory is created by space-time warping around celestial objects. This is why atoms' time tends to slow down when it gets close to a large object or enters an area where gravity is strong.

       All three of these theories for space-time are equally as plausible, for we have no evidence for any of them.

       Or is time all simultaneously occurring?

       I hope one day to find that out.

Astonishing Astrophysics

as·tro·phys·ics

/ˌæstroʊˈfɪzɪks/ Show Spelled [as-troh-fiz-iks]  

noun ( used with a singular verb  )

• the branch of astronomy that deals with the physical properties of celestial bodies and with the interaction between matter and radiation in the interior of celestial bodies and in interstellar space.

       Astrophysics is a very broad subject, covering almost every universal interaction in motion right now. It can cover and introduce theories such as string theory, the fourth dimension, wormholes, and dark energy. Astrophysics can be very complicated, also. Time is one of the subjects I am most interested in and will most likely do a post later on about it. Time seems simple, but no one really understands it. This is the complexity I'm talking about. Explaining things that we are so familiar with, but cannot FULLY understand.

       Theories are ideas formed by speculation: an idea of or belief about something arrived at through speculation or conjecture. They're a fundamental part of astrophysics. String theory, dark matter/energy, and wormholes will be introduced later. Theories are often complicated, and tie in with other theories.

       Astrophysics is a form of physics, a study of relationships between stars, planets, dimensions, and space itself.


       I guess you could say it's a hobby of mine.