Re: pinhole Weak Force Interactions

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From: Paul Doherty (pauld@exploratorium.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 15 2000 - 13:25:53 PDT 

Message-Id: <l03110709b596777ee39f@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 12:25:53 -0800
From: Paul Doherty <pauld@exploratorium.edu>
Subject: Re: pinhole Weak Force Interactions

Hi Al, Ellen and pinhole

Al, I enjoyed the "flavor" of your answer.

I'd add that the strong force, through its gluons, provides a significant
binding force between protons and neutrons in the nucleus as well as
between quarks within the proton and neutron.

The weak force interaction can change a down quark into an up quark this is
why a neutron spontaneously decays into a proton, one of its down quarks,
ddu, undergoes a weak force moderated conversion to an up quark duu and it
becomes a proton. An electron goes racing away from this interaction as
beta radiation. So streams of betas are often the result of weak force
interactions.

Don't miss a visit to the site Al recommended, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab
Particle Adventure. It's my favorite particle physics site.

Paul Doherty

Paul "But it is more complicated than that!" Doherty,
Senior Staff Scientist, The Exploratorium.
pauld@exploratorium.edu, www.exo.net/~pauld

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