A TOUR OF THE NUCLEUS AND NUCLEAR FORCES

 Nuclear Physics

Written by : Qutaiba Ismail (Physics bro)

• Did you know  our Galaxy has object called Neutron star that are just Giant nuclear .

• Did you know that the amount of uranium fuel needed to run a large nuclear power plant for an entire year is so small that  u can fit under your kitchen table.

• Did you Know that Doctors increasingly rely on nuclear medicine Technics which go by friendly sounding names such as: PET(positron emission therapy) scan, CAT scan or photon therapy.

What's Nuclear physics and where did it come from ?.

During a 20th century nuclear Physics emerge from the shadow of Chemistry to become much more than Chemistry , For example the sun is not a chemical fire 🔥,LORD KELVIN (1824-1907) in the 19th century did not know about nuclear Physics this made him to widely underestimate the age of the Sun ( in his paper : THE SUN AND THE SOLAR PHENOMENA). 

LORD KELVIN was wrong because to everyone surprise  the dream of Medieval Alchemist has been attained, one element can change into another, the Sun changes hydrogen into helium , but it cannot be done with chemistry.

NUCLEAR PHYSICS studies how the energy changes when Nuclear are combine and they are apart.

Nuclear provide most powerful sources of energy in the  universe through NUCLEAR FISSION and NUCLEAR FUSION.

•FISSION ENERGY is the energy behind:

a: The Nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

b: Nuclear power plants that are used to provide electrical power.

c: Nuclear Submarines, Aircraft carriers and Icebreakers.

• FUSION ENERGY is harder for human to harness we can do:

a: Hydrogen bombs with Nuclear fusion.

b: Future Nuclear power: scientist are working on the dream of fusion base Nuclear power to provide clean seemingly unlimited power by fusing isotopes of Hydrogen into Helium .

c: But fusing is where the Sun get energy for billions of years from fusing Hydrogen to Helium and then later Helium to Carbon and Oxygen.

All of our energy from solar power ,wind power, hydroelectricity,coal,oil ,natural gas originally comes from hydrogen fusion in the Sun .

However Nuclear Physics is far far more than just a couple of controversial application. Nuclear Physics is about everything that can be done with the nucleus.

CHEMIST are just proud of the periodic table with more than 100 elements but NUCLEAR PHYSICIST are even more proud of another table organising over 3000(three thousand) isotopes they called it THE TABLE OF THE NUCLIDES, 

NUCLEAR PHYSICS is a branch of Physics that introduces u to 2 of the 4 fundamental forces, one in which element can turn into an entirely different element in just an instant(i.e TRANSMUTATION) and the one that allow us to unleash the incredible energy that's contain in every Atom(RADIOACTIVE DECAY)

In addition to the stable nucleus, another 80 more nuclear found on Earth decay naturally some very slowly. From 1901 ERNEST RUTHERFORD and FREDRICK SODDY began to notice parts of what we called THORIUM decay chain, they found that THORIUM (element 90) spontaneously decay to RADIUM (element 88) and then  RADIUM spontaneously decay to RADON (element 86) with 86 proton and it continues, RUTHERFORD had already named the 3 types of Radiation even before there was any evidence the element were being transmuted and so he called:

(a)• alpha decay: Nucleus gives up 2 protons and 2 neurons.

(b)• beta decay: Nucleus emits an electron and a neutron turns into a proton.

(c)• gamma decay: Nucleus emits high-energy photon.

FREDRICK SODDY coined the word ISOTOPE , one more fact the geology of our planet (Earth) depends on the spontaneous TRANSMUTATION of elements, very slow decays of URANIUM, THORIUM and even Isotope of POTASSIUM provide HEAT that keeps the  EARTH CORE molten, the EARTH CORE being molten means that the EARTH remain geologically active and the continent keep drifting, this happens because this Isotope have very long Half-Life Comparable to the age of the EARTH, Half-Life of common URANIUM-238 is 4.5 billions years . Half-Life is a time for half the element to disappear.  The EARTH is also about 4.5 billions years old, so about half URANIUM-238 has decay in  this time, the Half-Life of THORIUM-232 is 14 billions years, so most of the THORIUM that we started with is still here.

Other isotopes decay much more quickly , CARBON-14 is an isotope created in the atmosphere by cosmic Rays that decay with the Half-Life, Half-Life of common URANIUM-238 is 4.5 billions years . 

Other isotopes decay much more quickly , CARBON-14 is an isotope created in the atmosphere by cosmic Rays that decay with the Half-Life of just  under 6000 years.After 1 Half-Life , half of the original isotope has transmuted into a different isotope , after 10 Half-Life , 99.9% of the isotope has transmuted into different isotope, this was originally quite shocking!!, Atoms have been thought the prominent fundamental building blocks of the universe.

When MARIE CURIE( 1867-1934) introduce the notion of RADIOACTIVITY , she was describing property of the new element that she discovered (this was the element THORIUM) , but also she showed that Atoms can decay and that means that Atoms are not the fundamental unit of matter.

The 20th century was the first century of NUCLEAR PHYSICS beginning with the discovery of  X-RAY in 1899 by WILHELM RONTGEN (1845-1923) and ERNEST RUTHERFORD (1871-1937) discovery of the nuclear in 1911, since then dozens of NUCLEAR PHYSICS Nobel prizes have been in both Physics and chemistry.

NUCLEAR PHYSICS developed recently because the Nucleus is so much smaller , the Nucleus is 10,000 times smaller than Atom, what's that mean??, If the Nucleus is a size of a tennis ball then the outermost electrons are orbiting 5 football field away , so individual neutrons and protons which we called NUCLEONS are even smaller than , they are several times smaller than the NUCLEUS, The size of the proton and neutron is about 10^-15 meter = 1fermtometer which we called 1fermi in honor of great NUCLEAR PHYSICIST , the QUARKS and GLUONS Atleast a thousand times smaller than that.  Wait a minute !, Why do we care about QUARKS and GLUONS?, That sounds like a particle Physics, well!!  What's the difference between NUCLEAR PHYSICS and PARTICLE PHYSICS?

Both are subatomic, both used accelerator.

PARTICLE PHYSICS (also called HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS) studies the particles themselves (the particles Zoo😀😀😄)

Nuclear Physics application

1. Medical imaging

2. Medical treatment

3. Industrial , archeological and art analysis.

4. X-RAYS sample

5. Neutron activation analysis

6. Carbon-14 dating and others.

We used Technetium-99 in Nuclear medicine , Technetium-99 is actually in excited state and it decays to ground state giving up a Gamma Ray and we use that Gamma Ray to see what is going on inside the body.