School of Physics

Gday Joshua actually, your question is more subtle than it looks. We could simply say that that IS approximately the (astronomical) definition of gravitational potential energy. But you want it explained, so we'll have to go through the whole argument. Best Joe 1) We divide forces into two sorts: co...

1) I expect that the questioner wants you to refer to the binding energy curve for average nucleii, such as that given at http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/binding_energy/binding_energy.html This gives the binding energy of the nucleus per nucleon. **Considering the most stable isotope for e...

The electrical charge of a quark is either +/- 1/3 or +/- 2/3. So three quarks (a baryon) could have a charge of 2, 1, 0, -1 or -2. However, there is another, strong attractive force among quarks. The quantity that produces the electric field, and which is also affected by the electric field, is cal...

The argument is in a couple of stages. First it was known that the particle was not charged, so could not be a proton. The next thing was to see if it could be a photon. So Chadwick's argument is to see whether momentum and energy can simultaneously be conserved if the particle is a photon. It canno...

Temperature is proportional to the kinetic energy of atoms or (in this case) electrons. Boiling of water occurs then when the temperature is sufficiently high that the kinetic energy of the water molecules is comparable with the magnitude of the potential energy of attraction to other water molecule...

Gday Kristy, there is a little story about Chadwick at the URL given below. More importantly, it has the paper from "Nature" in which Chadwick himself describes the discovery of the neutron. It's not a very long paper, nor is it very technical. The part that you want is the fourth paragrap...

"Hi Joe, I was reading the textbook and it said that the strong nuclear force is replusive at very small distances, but it didn't explain why. Can you please explain this?" Nucleons, like electrons, obey the Pauli exclusion principle: they cannot have the same quantum numbers. For electron...

"Hi Joe, I was reading the textbook and it said that the strong nuclear force is replusive at very small distances, but it didn't explain why. Can you please explain this?" Nucleons, like electrons, obey the Pauli exclusion principle: they cannot have the same quantum numbers. For electron...

It is often the case that the wave speed in the lower layer is higher than that in the upper. So a wave that travels to the interface, then refracts at an angle of 90° (ie along the interface), then refracts up to the sensor at an angle equal to that of incidence, is the wave of first arrival. A wav...