• Question: why do quarks stick together so well

    Asked by anon-285356 to Rob, Megan on 28 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Megan Metcalfe

      Megan Metcalfe answered on 26 Mar 2021:

      Hi George, I would love to be able answer your question, but that’s a little out of my field of expertise- most of my equipment uses sound to identify and image features of archaeology (such as shipwrecks) on the seabed, or map buried landscapes that are submerged under the sea. Possibly one of the other scientists might be able to answer your question on quarks? If you find the answer then let me know 🙂

Comments

  • Photo: Geraint

    Geraint commented on :

    Wooooo, great question! I’m going to give an answer if I may because this sounds right up my street. Quarks stick together through a force called the Strong Force, which is like gravity in the way it pulls things together but as you might guess is far far stronger. Or at least it is for quarks inside hadrons like the protons and neutrons that make up atoms.
    I’m not sure how much you know about forces, but forces like gravity (that keep you from flying off the Earth) and electromagnetism (how magnets work) get weaker for large distances. If you think about two bar magnets, when they’re close together, the North and South poles pull at each other quite strongly because of magnetic forces, but if you put them really far away (like on two different tables), they barely effect each other. The Strong Force is different in this sense because it actually gets STRONGER the further away the quarks are. It’s like having a spring between two quarks, if you imagine pulling them apart, it gets harder and harder to tug them the further you pull them apart.
    The Strong Force is bonkers in many ways but the main reasons that quarks stick together so well is because the strong force is incredibly strong for quarks inside neutrons and protons and it gets even stronger when you try to pull them apart.