In physics, a force is a push or pull on an object. There are four fundamental forces, three of which—the electromagnetic force, the strong force, and the weak force—are involved in keeping stable atoms in one piece and determining how unstable atoms will decay. The electromagnetic force keeps electrons attached to their atom. The strong force holds the protons and neutrons together in the nucleus. The weak force governs how atoms decay when they have excess protons or neutrons. The fourth fundamental force, gravity, only becomes apparent with objects much larger than subatomic particles.
| Electromagnetic Force |
The most familiar of the forces at work inside the atom is the electromagnetic force. This is the same force that causes people’s hair to stick to a brush or comb when they have a buildup of static electricity. The electromagnetic force causes opposite electric charges to attract each other. Because of this force, the negatively charged electrons in an atom are attracted to the positively charged protons in the atom’s nucleus. This force of attraction binds the electrons to the atom. The electromagnetic force becomes stronger as the distance between charges becomes smaller. This property usually causes oppositely charged particles to come as close to each other as possible. For many years, scientists wondered why electrons didn’t just spiral into the nucleus of an atom, getting as close as possible to the protons. Physicists eventually learned that particles as small as electrons can behave like waves, and this property keeps electrons at set distances from the atom’s nucleus. The wavelike nature of electrons is discussed below in the Quantum Atom section of this article.
The electromagnetic force also causes like charges to repel each other. The negatively charged electrons repel one another and tend to move far apart from each other, but the positively charged nucleus exerts enough electromagnetic force to keep the electrons attached to the atom. Protons in the nucleus also repel one other, but, as described below, the strong force overcomes the electromagnetic force in the nucleus to hold the protons together.
Strong Force
Protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms are held together by the strong force. This force must overcome the electromagnetic force of repulsion the protons in a nucleus exert on one another. The strong force that occurs between protons alone, however, is not enough to hold them together. Other particles that add to the strong force, but not to the electromagnetic force, must be present to make a nucleus stable. The particles that provide this additional force are neutrons. Neutrons add to the strong force of attraction but have no electric charge and so do not increase the electromagnetic repulsion.
Range of the Strong Force
The strong force only operates at very short range—about 2 femtometers (abbreviated fm), or 2 × 10-15 m (8 × 10-14 in). Physicists also use the word fermi (also abbreviated fm) for this unit in honor of Italian-born American physicist Enrico Fermi. The short-range property of the strong force makes it very different from the electromagnetic and gravitational forces. These latter forces become weaker as distance increases, but they continue to affect objects millions of light-years away from each other. Conversely, the strong force has such limited range that not even all protons and neutrons in the same nucleus feel each other’s strong force. Because the diameter of even a small nucleus is about 5 to 6 fm, protons and neutrons on opposite sides of a nucleus only feel the strong force from their nearest neighbors.
The strong force differs from electromagnetic and gravitational forces in another important way—the way it changes with distance. Electromagnetic and gravitational forces of attraction increase as particles move closer to one another, no matter how close the particles get. This increase causes particles to move as close together as possible. The strong force, on the other hand, remains roughly constant as protons and neutrons move closer together than about 2 fm. If the particles are forced much closer together, the attractive nuclear force suddenly turns repulsive. This property causes nuclei to form with the same average spacing—about 2 fm—between the protons and neutrons, no matter how many protons and neutrons there are in the nucleus.
The unique nature of the strong force determines the relative number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. If a nucleus has too many protons, the strong force cannot overcome the electromagnetic repulsion of the protons. If the nucleus has too many neutrons, the excess strong force tries to crowd the protons and neutrons too close together. Most stable atomic nuclei fall between these extremes. Lighter nuclei, such as carbon-12 and oxygen-16, are made up of 50 percent protons and 50 percent neutrons. More massive nuclei, such as bismuth-209, contain about 40 percent protons and 60 percent neutrons.
Pions
Particle physicists explain the behavior of the strong force by introducing another type of particle, called a pion. Protons and neutrons interact in the nucleus by exchanging pions. Exchanging pions pulls protons and neutrons together. The process is similar to two people having a game of catch with a heavy ball, but with each person attached to the ball by a spring. As one person throws the ball to the other, the spring pulls the thrower toward the ball. If the players exchange the ball rapidly enough, the ball and springs become just a blur to an observer, and it appears as if the two throwers are simply pulled toward one another. This is what occurs in the nuclei of atoms. The protons and neutrons in the nucleus are the people, pions act as the ball, and the strong force acts as the springs holding everything together.
Pions in the nucleus exist only for the briefest instant of time, no more than 1 × 10-23 seconds, but even during their short existence they can provide the attraction that holds the nucleus together. Pions can also exist as independent particles outside of the nucleus of an atom. Scientists have created them by striking high-speed protons against a target. Even though the free pions also live only for a short period of time (about 1 × 10-8 seconds), scientists have been able study their properties.
Weak Force
The weak force lives up to its name—it is much weaker than the electromagnetic and strong forces. Like the strong force, it only acts over a short distance, about .01 fm. Unlike these other forces, however, the weak force affects all the particles in an atom. The electromagnetic force only affects the electrons and protons, and the strong force only affects the protons and neutrons. When a nucleus has too many protons to hold together or so many neutrons that the strong force squeezes too tightly, the weak force actually changes one type of particle into another. When an atom undergoes one type of decay, for example, the weak force causes a neutron to change into a proton, an electron, and an electron antineutrino. The total electric charge and the total energy of the particles remain the same before and after the change.
Source: Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009
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