.
A quick review of matter…
.
Quarks are/is (?) (the, a?) fundamental particles of matter.
.
There are 6 flavors (or kinds). They don’t exist individually, but sort of come in “pairs” with charges on them. Each has less than an old-fashioned “+1” charge like the protons carried and the “0” charge the neutrons.
.
Think of protons and neutrons as “packages of 3 quarks.”
.
[Want some more? Use the DOOR.]
.
[MORE]
.
First, quarks have funny names. Please consider the source (scientists who have spent too much time indoors) and accept them…
.
(1) “Up“ (has +2/3 “charge”)
(2) “Down“ (has -1/3 charge)
.
(3) “Charm“
(4) “Strange“
.
(5) “Top“
(6) “Bottom“
.
(Think of Charm and Top charged like up; think of strange and bottom charged as down. After doing that we’re going to ignore them in the rest of this post.)
.
Protons have three quarks–two up quarks and one down quark. For the up quarks, do the math: +2/3 plus +2/3 = +4/3. For the down quark you have just one of those: -1/3. Now put them together. +4/3 -1/3 = +4/4 = +1
.
Therefore every proton still has +1 charge.
.
Now neutrons (also) have three quarks–but only one up quark and two down quarks. So, that’s +2/3 -1/3 -1/3 = 0.
.
Therefore every neutron (still) has 0 (or “no”) charge, same as always.
Recent Comments