quarks

Posted as undergrad because it's beyond the A Level syllabus.

I know they have a charge, a spin and a mass which makes me think they are small 'particles'.

I think my question is 'what is the nature of a quark?' but I really don't know. They're strange (ha)!

I don't understand what gives it it's charge. What exactly is it made of? :erm:

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 1

Davelittle

What is an electrons charge made of?

Think you might need string theory/ at least the 4th spacial dimension to answer that?

Reply 2

User990473

Original post by Davelittle

What is an electrons charge made of?

Think you might need string theory/ at least the 4th spacial dimension to answer that?

I don't know. I first wondered about this when I was curious about what charge actually was last year in AS phyics. I was following the charge down as far as I could but got stuck at quark :redface:

Seriously? :sigh:

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 3

Davelittle

Original post by Occams Chainsaw

I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out I think. I was following the charge down as far as I could but got stuck at quark :redface:

Seriously? :sigh:

Yeah I don't think we fully understand what makes "charge" as I'm fairly sure we can only properly explain the electrostatic force as a disturbance in the fourth dimension (correct me if I am wrong)

Reply 4

User990473

Original post by Davelittle

Yeah I don't think we fully understand what makes "charge" as I'm fairly sure we can only properly explain the electrostatic force as a disturbance in the fourth dimension (correct me if I am wrong)

Well, that sucks. Maybe I'll end up researching it some day! :awesome:

Thanks for answering :smile:

Reply 5

tory88

Original post by Occams Chainsaw

We don't really know, it's like with electrons. If you know about wave-particle duality, then we can't really say that something is always a particle for definite. There are a number of theories as to what actually composes a quark - one idea is that everything is a string, and the way the string vibrates determines what type of particle it appears as (electron, quark etc.). For that idea to work mathematically there must be more spacial dimensions than we can experience, but it would explain why gravity is so weak (it is strong in the dimensions we can't interact with).

Reply 6

BobLoblawLawBlog

Original post by Occams Chainsaw

This probably doesn't answer your question, but it's a pretty amazing song:

[video="youtube;U0kXkWXSXRA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kXkWXSXRA[/video]

Reply 7

User990473

Original post by tory88

Then what the hell else is in those dimensions, I wonder :lolwut:

Just going to put it out there. Physics is awesome :ahee:

Original post by brittanna

This probably doesn't answer your question, but it's a pretty amazing song:

[video="youtube;U0kXkWXSXRA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kXkWXSXRA[/video]

Hahaha! Did you click the link to giraffe sex after that too? :mmm:

Reply 8

uberteknik

Original post by Occams Chainsaw

As with all things in physics, the units chosen for describing the properties of matter are all arbitrary and historical. No-one can tell you why they exist or what a particle actually is or why they exert forces and do what they do.

We have to be content with observation and prediction of observation only and come up with ways and words to describe that behaviour referenced to some other predictable, stable and repeatable standard of measurement.

Of course we can predict behaviour to a high degree of precision which manifests in technology and all if the benefits that accrues.

There are fundamental forces which behave very differently to each other and interact with matter in different ways.

Gravity is always attractive. Charge can either repel or attract but does not interact with uncharged particles etc. The range and magnitide of the forces is also vastly different. Gravity is 10³⁶ times weaker than the electric force for instance.

Particle physics is like a russian doll. Pull off the head and there is something else inside. No-one can tell you where it will end, all we can do is make predictions based on observation and then test those predictions.

Taken to the extreme, that ends up in experiments like the Large Hadron Collider etc.

A laymans guide and a start: http://youtu.be/HVxBdMxgVX0

Reply 9

BobLoblawLawBlog

Original post by Occams Chainsaw

Then what the hell else is in those dimensions, I wonder :lolwut:

Just going to put it out there. Physics is awesome :ahee:

Hahaha! Did you click the link to giraffe sex after that too? :mmm:

The first time I watched it I did yeah :biggrin:

. I don't think it's actually possible to pass up on an opportunity to learn about giraffe sex :nah:

Reply 10

BobLoblawLawBlog

Original post by Occams Chainsaw

Then what the hell else is in those dimensions, I wonder :lolwut:

Just going to put it out there. Physics is awesome :ahee:

Hahaha! Did you click the link to giraffe sex after that too? :mmm:

This is completely unrelated, but did you get the idea for your username from House?

Reply 11

User990473

Original post by brittanna

This is completely unrelated, but did you get the idea for your username from House?

I got the idea from learning about Occam's razor in science :smile:

Reply 12

User990473

Original post by uberteknik

Thanks a lot!

I appreciate that each new thing we understand presents more questions than it answers but I wasn't sure if we understood what charge was yet and that's sort of what I was aiming to get out of this :redface:

Now I know that we don't really know, I can sit back in awe at it all!

A sidenote: I think I once watched a documentary where they said that gravity could theoretically work in reverse too :K:

Cheers for the link. I'll check it out! :yep:

Reply 13

tory88

Original post by Occams Chainsaw

Then what the hell else is in those dimensions, I wonder :lolwut:

Just going to put it out there. Physics is awesome :ahee:

It's something we can't comprehend. Imagine living in a world of two spacial dimensions, forwards and backwards and left and right. We would have no concept of what up and down were, so we could never understand what the third spacial dimension could be.

Reply 14

User990473

Original post by tory88

Sure. It's all mathematical right now :smile:

My question was more rhetorical. I was just pondering there being 'stuff' in the other dimensions that we are not aware of :redface:

EDIT: I like to think of it like a bird flying over a building and only seeing the 2d 'birds-eye-view' because it means that we only need to find a way to change the height of our flight to see how tall it is too :biggrin: