- 4094 - MESONS - part of the family of particles? Mesons are brick layers. They work with stones. Right? Wrong, that is masons. Mesons is not even in Webster’s dictionary. You need a science dictionary. Mesons are sub-atomic particles. Mesons are not in our every day world, but they are important for physicists to understand how our world got to where it is.
---------------- 4094 - MESONS - part of the family of particles?
- We live in a world with energy near “ground
state“. Energy always tries to get to
its lowest level. We live in one of
those. But, if you add energy to our
world you find that another world exists at higher energies. It is very mysterious.
- Energy always tries to take the easiest
path and reach the lowest level. It is
like “entropy” which is another word for randomness. Entropy in a closed system always
increases. The Universe always seeks
randomness or disorder over order. It
takes energy added to the system to get order.
Complexity requires energy.
-
- Basically, the star known as our Sun supplies
all the energy to create our world. Even the Sun has a lifetime and it will
fall to entropy eventually. Our whole
Universe will someday be cold, dark, empty, and in complete disorder of random
particles. It will take 100’s of
billions of years to get there. So, we
have time.
-
- Our world now is in a low energy state,
but, not the lowest. Low enough for
protons, neutrons, and electrons to exist in a stable “ground state”.
- We think of energy as a continuous thing,
but it is not. Energy, like light
energy, and all other forms of radiation, comes to us in bundles. It is little bundles of energy, but a lot of
them. These are called “quantums” of
energy and are studied using Quantum Mechanics for the math.
-
- For electromagnetic energy these quantums
are called photons. Each photon of
energy carries 4.136*10^-15 electron volts of energy per cycle per second.
-
----- That is 0.000,000,000,000,004,136 electron
volts per cycle per second.
-
- Obviously, this is a very small amount of
energy, but there are a lot of them.
Photons are massless and can only travel at the speed of light at all
times. Photons can not slow down , can
not rest. They must be in motion at
300,000,000 meters per second. (671 million miles per hour), always. However, light energy increases with
frequency, cycles per second. The higher
the frequency the higher the energy.
-
- Energy is proportional to frequency and
inversely proportional to wavelength.
“Any proportionality can be turned into an equality with a
constant.” Frequency is inversely
proportional to wavelength. As
frequency increases wavelengths get shorter.
In this case the constant is the speed of light, 3*10^8 meters per
second.
-
------------- frequency
* wavelength = 3*10^8
m/sec
-
------------- f
* w =
CONSTANT
-
------------- f
* w = c
-
- Energy is proportional to frequency. In this case the constant is Planck’s
Constant of Action. Symbol is “h” =
4.136*10^-15 electron volt * seconds.
-
-------------
Energy
= frequency *
4.136*10^-15 eV*sec.
-
------------- E
= f * h
-
------------ E / f
= CONSTANT
-
- The higher the frequency, the higher the
energy. The frequency of X-ray radiation
is 10^18 cycles per second.
-
-------------- E
= f * h
-
-------------- E
= 10^18 *
4*10^-15
-
-------------- E
= 4,000 electron volts.
-
- X-rays carry a lot of energy, 4,000 eV,
and , they have very short wavelengths.
0
-------------- w
= c / f
-
-------------- wavelength
= 3*10^8 /
10^18 = 3*10^-10 meters
-
-------------- wavelength
= 30 nanometers.
-
- The short wavelength is why X-rays can pass
through flesh and do not get reflected until they hit the higher density bones
inside your body.
-
- Energy is also proportional to mass. Remember, any proportionality can be turned
into an equality with a constant. In
this case the constant is the speed of light squared, 9*10^16 meters^2 /
second^2.
-
---------------- E
= m*c^2
-
--------------- Energy
= mass *
90,000,000,000,000,000 (m/sec)^2
-
- Mass is composed of particles and
particles come in two basic types depending on their angular momentum, or
spin. Some particles have integer spins
and some particles have 1/2 integer spins.
If they have integer spins they are called Bosons. Photons are Bosons and have integer spins and
therefore can occupy the same space.
-
- Two flashlight beams can overlap, no
problem. If particles have 1/2 integer
spins they can not occupy the same space and they are called Fermions. Electrons, protons, and neutrons are Fermions
with 1/2 integer spins and they can not occupy the same space. The fact that they can not occupy the same
space is what allows atoms to have structure.
It is what gives matter mass.
-
- 2 electrons, 2 protons, or 2 neutrons in an
atom can not occupy the same space, nor can they have the same spin or the same
quantum number. This fact is what
creates atoms with electrons in only certain orbits. This is what creates all the elements in the
Periodic Table. The electron orbits are
set by their angular momentum and spin.
The orbits for an electron only come in quantum states of:
-
----------- h /2pi ------------ 2h/2pi
----------- 3h /2pi -----------
4h/2pi ------ etc.........
-
- “2pi” is one cycle and they can only exists
in integer cycles. “h/2pi” is Planck’s
Constant of Action per cycle.
-
- The ground state for an electron in orbit is
to seek the lowest energy level and to have zero angular momentum. “ spin” is the particles intrinsic angular
momentum. Since an electron’s spin, as
with all Fermions, only comes in 1/2 integers the orbital states are:
-
---------- 1/2*h /2pi ------------ 1/2*2h/2pi
----------- 1/2* 3h /2pi
----------- etc.........
-
- The ground state is 1/2 * h/ 2pi which is h
/ 4pi. The lowest energy level. Higher orbits for electrons require higher
energies. We say an electron can have
only spin up or spin down, + h/ 2pi or - h/2pi, which h/4pi, which is the ground
state of 2 electrons in their lowest orbit.
-
- All atoms have only 2 atoms in their lowest
orbit. One electron is spin up and one
electron is spin down, because electrons, and all Fermions, can not exist in an
atom with the same quantum state. Fermions come in two types, Leptons and
Quarks, and they all have 1/2 integer spins.
Electrons are Leptons.
-
- Protons and Neutrons are made up of Quarks,
three Quarks. Protons have 2 Up Quarks
and 1 Down Quark. Neutrons have 1 Up
Quark and 2 Down Quarks. Down Quarks are
slightly heavier than Up Quarks making the neutron slightly heavier than the
proton.
-
- I know this is getting complicated, but,
complexity requires energy. Hang in
there. Particles with 3 Quarks are called Baryons and that is what ordinary
matter is made of, Baryons, protons and neutrons. Up and Down Quarks are the low energy ones
that make up all the Baryons.
-
- Other “pairs” of Quarks exist at higher
energy levels. There are 3 pairs of six
Quarks in all, Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, and Bottom. However, Baryons are not the only particles
made up of Quarks. They are the only
stable ones. Baryons are made up of 3
Quarks and are stable. The other
sub-atomic particles made up of 2 Quarks are called Mesons. There we finally got to “ What are Mesons?”
-
- Mesons are higher energy sub-atomic
particles that are made up of 2 Quarks but they are not Fermions because they
do not have 1/2 integer spins. They have
integer spins and they are unstable, decaying back to pure energy in very short
periods of time.
-
- The only Meson that is staple is the
photon. The photon is massless, has an
integer spin and is stable. The photon is also a Boson and is the force carrier for
the electromagnetic force. Mesons are not
force carries, and not Bosons.
- For every particle that exists there is an
equivalent anti-particle with negative energy. Mesons are made up of a Quark
and an anti-Quark. Mesons do not exist
in our world but for an instant. They
exist at higher energy levels and are so unstable they decay almost instantly.
- Particle physicists had to come up with
these complex names because particles at the higher energy levels had to be
categorized and studied. If we dispense
with the names, our world becomes simple:
-
--------------- matter
--------------------- force
carriers
-
---------------protons,
electrons --------- photons
-
--------------- Fermions
---------------- Bosons
-
------------Quarks,
Leptons ------------ photons
-
------------ Baryons
------------------- Mesons
-
- Baryons have 1/2 integer spin and cannot
occupy the same space.
-
- Mesons have integer spin and can occupy the
same space but are too unstable to live long.
-
- Baryons have 3 Quarks.
-
- Mesons have 2 Quarks. One Quark and one Anti-Quark
- Mesons have names like eta, pion, rho,
omega, phi, upsilon, kaon, D, and B mesons. All various combinations of Quarks
and Anti-Quarks. Remember, there are 6
Quarks in all and 6 Anti-Quarks, so, at least, 15 different combinations of
these have been discovered in particle accelerators.
-
- When these discoveries started they were
referred to as a “zoo of particles“. One
famous physicists said, “ Who ordered these?”
-
- If the nucleus of the atom were a baseball
the entire atom would be 10 kilometers across.
The atom is 99.999,999,999,999,9 % empty space. Talk about making a lot out of nothing.
-
-
July 16, 2023 MESONS
- part of the family of
particles? 1099 4094
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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------ “Jim Detrick” -----------
--------------------- ---
Sunday, July 16, 2023
---------------------------------
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