5 ms·
Might be a dumb question...but what would a single hydrogen or carbon molecule look like? It was not clear, at least to me, how many of these particles make up
by ewams 6y ago
Might be a dumb question...but what would a single hydrogen or carbon molecule look like? It was not clear, at least to me, how many of these particles make up atoms.
Please forgive me if I used the wrong terms.
- andrewflnr 6y agoA hydrogen atom is generally two up quarks and one down quark, making up a proton, and one electron. The force carriers and occasionally neutrinos show up for interactions, but most of the rest only appear on earth in particle accelerators.
- ewams 6y agoThank you. That is what I was thinking but the different sizes kind of got me.
- mncharity 6y agoRe "sizes", fwiw, you might like [1]. Something I wrote as conversation prep - loads slowwwwly. Quarks are much smaller than their proton. IIRC, >1000x smaller. [1] http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/Atoms#view-nucleons http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/Atoms#view-nucleons
- _Microft 6y agoIf you don't mind watching a nearly 50 year old video then I can recommend "Powers of Ten" [0], attempting to visualize the different scales on which things are happening in the universe we know of. It is a very short video, just 9 minutes long. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
- cygx 6y agoAtoms consist of a nucleus made from protons and neutrons, and a hull made from electrons. Protons and neutrons in turn are made from up and down quarks (uud for the proton and udd for the neutron). Add the electron neutrino to fix up some nuclear reactions, and you're good to go as far as most things you see around you is concerned (excluding the 'force carrier' part of the particle spectrum). Hence the quip "Who ordered that?" attributed to I.I. Rabi on the discovery of the muon.
- ewams 6y agoThank you for the info.
- _Microft 6y agoSibling comments have described the structure of atoms already, so here is a different thing: What you see in the article is a way to organize the types of particles and interactions that occur in the standard model according to their properties. It is not a way to visualize atoms or molecules that you might be familiar with from chemistry if this is what you meant. The following comparison might be flawed but imagine like it an overview sheet for screws [0]. One type is listed with philips head, one with torx, one type might have a thread with this angle and that pitch, the threads being right-handed or left-handed ... You can then look at this sheet, see the different screws and tell which one you e.g. might replace with another, depending on the tools or requirements you have. It is not blueprint for any particular object, though. To go back to the article: because of the similarity of their properties, you could substitute an electron with a muon for example. Read more about this here: [1] [2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon#Muonic_atoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon#Muonic_atoms [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_atom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_atom
- ewams 6y agoGreat extra info and way to look at it, thank you.