how and by which forces can nucleus and protons are held together in an atom even if these are attracted by electrons revolving around them

kanav malhotra, 13 years ago

Grade:

1 Answers

SAGAR SINGH - IIT DELHI

878 Points

13 years ago

Dear student,

Protons and neutrons are held together in a nucleus of an atom by the strong force. The strong force gets it name by being the strongest attractive force. It is 137 times more powerful than electromagnetic, which by the way cannot hold neutrons to protons because neutrons are not charged. It is 100,000 times more powerful than the weak force and 6,000 billion billion billion billion (6 followed by 39 zeroes) times more powerful than gravity which by the way has almost no effect at atomic scales.

According to the standard model of particle physics, the fundamental forces (strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravity) are predicted to occur as a result of an exchange between particles via "force carrying particles". Also, neutrons and protons are made up of tinier particles called quarks. And it is the quarks that exchange force carrying particles between each other to give rise to the strong force. The force carrying particles are called gluons.

It should be mentioned that the strong force only operates at EXTREMELY small distances. These distances are on the order of a 1000th millionth millionth of a meter (10 to the power of -15). If you think about a micrometer (one hundredth the size of a human hair), it is a billion times smaller than that.

Please feel free to ask your queries here. We are all IITians and here to help you in your IIT JEE preparation.

All the best.

Win exciting gifts by answering the questions on Discussion Forum. So help discuss any query on askiitians forum and become an Elite Expert League askiitian.

Now you score 5+15 POINTS by uploading your Pic and Downloading the Askiitians Toolbar respectively : Click here to download the toolbar..

Askiitians Expert

Sagar Singh

B.Tech, IIT Delhi