UM-Bot Posted November 12, 2006 #1 Share Posted November 12, 2006 When small cannot get any smaller, you enter the quantum world of quarks, photons, and space-time foam. You're welcome to take a look at this indivisible side of nature, but just remember to leave your common sense at the door. People as far back as the Greek philosopher Democritus believed that things were built up from irreducible pieces. Isaac Newton himself thought that light was not a wave, but rather a collection of tiny "corpuscules." Physicists have only recently acquired tools with sufficient resolution to see nature's inherent graininess. If you split a banana, and then split it again, and again, and again... you eventually get down to cells, molecules, atoms. Each atom has a nucleus of protons and neutrons, with tiny electrons buzzing around. Both protons and neutrons contain three quarks.But the dissection stops there: electrons and quarks are the smallest pieces of ordinary matter. How small are they? The electron is sometimes said be a few femtometers across (about a trillionth of a hair's width), but this is misleading. Electrons and quarks are more like puffy clouds than rigid balls. This puffiness is the result of unavoidable quantum uncertainty: You can't precisely know a particle's motion and position at the same time. If you try to hold a quark still, you would have almost no idea where it is. Such slipperiness makes exact size measurements meaningless. View: Full Article | Source: Live Science Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picturesque Orion Posted November 12, 2006 #2 Share Posted November 12, 2006 Incredible....... I just can't imagine me walking over millions of germs and bacteria, or the streets full of germs and bacteria even the air( because they are everywere ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROGER Posted November 12, 2006 #3 Share Posted November 12, 2006 If the one paragraph is right , the Theory that particals and Anti- particals pop in to time space , collide and release Energy would be by definition G_O_D_. Gigantic odd Development ! Got out of that one! LOL'S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert_Childan Posted November 13, 2006 #4 Share Posted November 13, 2006 So are you saying quarks can't be made up of something smaller? Or we just can't figure that out yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShaunZero Posted November 13, 2006 #5 Share Posted November 13, 2006 Yeah.. if quarks are the smallest thing.... does that mean quarks are made of nothing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooth_and_Claw Posted November 13, 2006 #6 Share Posted November 13, 2006 bad for an OCD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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