The Mysterious Forces Inside the Nucleus Grow a Little Less Strange
The strong force holds protons and neutrons together, but the theory behind it is largely inscrutable. Two new approaches show how it works. The post The Mysterious Forces Inside the Nucleus Grow a Little Less Strange first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Billions of times each minute, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) smashes protons together, unleashing a maelstrom of energy that crystallizes into more protons, neutrons, and less familiar cousins of the nuclear particles. Some particles encounter each other as they flee the scene. What happens next — whether a given pair pulls together or pushes apart — physicists generally can’t say.
Originally published in Quanta Abstractions.
