Objects of Interest

Nuclear Physics is a study on nuclear matter which is fundamental building block of the world.

electron, proton , neutron, deuteron, tritium, etc... those are objects in nuclear, we call them "particle". the most simple particle in here is electron, proton and neutron.

The different between nuclear and atom is:

Nuclear core (sit in the center) + Electrons (moving around) = Atom

the mass of atom is almost contributed by nuclear. This is because the mass of proton is about 1830 times bigger than electron, and neutron's mass is only heavier a bit then proton.

There are many properties contained in each particle. there are electric charge, mass, spin, kinetic energy, etc... and the objective of nuclear physics is understand all these properties and how these properties affect the inter-reaction among them. for example, how a proton and neutron form a nuclear core in deuteron? how they attract each other?

these properties, some may say, are ASSIGNED to the particles. Basically, we can only measure the effect or the result from each interaction. we think, there is a FORCE to make particles able to INTER-ACT with each others. simple to say, when an electron meets another electron, they affect each other by ELECTROMAGNETIC force. but when consider an electron meet a neutron, they don't interact by electromagnetic(EM) force. in order to distinguish these. we assign an electric CHARGE to electron, and no charge for neutron.

so, basically, Nuclear Physics is study the PROPERTIES of particles and the INTERACTION among them.

There are 3 major forces/interactions, Weak force, EM force and Strong force. Until this moment, we only know the weak and EM force and not fully understand the strong. We neglect the gravity in here, because it is very weak and do no observable effect.

Force	Strength	Range
Strong	10,000	10-15m
EM	1000	long
Weak	1	10-18m