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Subject:
subatomic particles
Category: Science > Physics Asked by: lavoisier-ga List Price: $5.00 |
Posted:
12 Sep 2005 22:46 PDT
Expires: 12 Oct 2005 22:46 PDT Question ID: 567435 |
Why are the proton, neutron, and electron, the masses that they are? Why are the proton and neutron so much larget than the electron? |
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There is no answer at this time. |
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Subject:
Re: subatomic particles
From: qed100-ga on 13 Sep 2005 05:59 PDT |
The answer to your question is not known. Research is ongoing to understand such issues. |
Subject:
Re: subatomic particles
From: racecar-ga on 13 Sep 2005 10:46 PDT |
Protons and neutrons are made up of three quarks each. Electrons are not made up of quarks, but are elementary particles themselves. That doesn't explain why they are the weight they are, but it does explain why protons and neutrons are about the same mass, and electrons are very different. |
Subject:
Re: subatomic particles
From: jarvisjd-ga on 13 Sep 2005 13:30 PDT |
howdy. From a fundamental point of view it is not even understood why elementary particles have mass in the first place(let alone the specific mass that they have!). The mechanism many physicists look to in order to give fields a mass term in quantum field theory is called the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is a scalar field that somehow "gives" mass to every other elementary particle through its interaction with them. The Higgs has a rather high threshold energy for production, thus it has not been conclusively observed as of yet. That may change when the Large Hadron Collider comes online in ~2007. For an answer to your question supported by solid evidence, I'm afraid that you are going to need 5*10^10 dollars rather than 5 :) |
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