Neutron , Manifestation .
- Thread starter river
- Start date
Why does anything manifest?
Neutrons are just a common type of baryon. They are found in all atomic nuclei except for hydrogen-1.
No. A neutron is a particle, rather like a proton.
That's incorrect. No protons are needed for a neutron to exist.
Yes. Free neutrons - not bound in atomic nuclei - tend to decay after a few minutes. The particular type of decay you mention is energetically favourable for a free neutron.
It is also possible for a proton to turn into a neutron, a positron and a neutrino, but that tends to happen only to bound protons in heavy nuclei (because, there again, it is energetically favourable).
Hydrogen-1 has no neutron. Hydrogen-2 (a.k.a. deuterium) and Hydrogen-3 (a.k.a. tritium) have one and two neutrons, respectively.
Hydrogen-1 is the simplest possible kind of atomic nucleus, in that it can bind with an electron to create a regular hydrogen atom.
No. Protons do not cause neutrons to come into existence. Who told you they did?
No. Protons do not cause electrons to come into existence. Who told you they did?
Nuclear fusion is about smaller nuclei fusing together to form larger ones. For the most part, no new neutrons are produced in the process.
Yes. The Helium nucleus would be unstable and quickly decay. And so...?
No. Why do you think that happens? Who told you that?
Protons don't.
What do you mean by "of their sort"? Neutrons and electrons don't have a "sort", as far as I'm aware.
river:
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P.S. Looking back over my previous replies to this thread, I realise that I neglected to point out that certain fusion processes can and do produce neutrons from protons and electrons. But that only happens under certain conditions. Proton-proton fusion, described just above, requires very high temperatures, because protons are electrically charged; free protons tend to repel each other electrically, and that repulsion has to be overcome for two protons to fuse and produce a deuterium nucleus (which contains one proton and one neutron).
I was thinking that, in the ordinary course of events, at "room temperature", protons do not produce neutrons.
I also wrote this:
Some of them were formed in the big bang. But stars also produce neutrons in the regular fusion of hydrogen into (ultimately) helium. When a proton collides with a hydrogen nucleus under appropriate conditions, one proton can combine with an electron to produce a neutron. This is actually the first step in the proton-proton fusion chain.
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P.S. Looking back over my previous replies to this thread, I realise that I neglected to point out that certain fusion processes can and do produce neutrons from protons and electrons. But that only happens under certain conditions. Proton-proton fusion, described just above, requires very high temperatures, because protons are electrically charged; free protons tend to repel each other electrically, and that repulsion has to be overcome for two protons to fuse and produce a deuterium nucleus (which contains one proton and one neutron).
I was thinking that, in the ordinary course of events, at "room temperature", protons do not produce neutrons.
I also wrote this:
which is probably too definitive a statement. Whether neutrons are produced in a fusion reaction depends on the conditions under which that reaction is occurring, as well as in which kinds of nuclei are fusing. I should have been clearer, and I apologise for any confusion.
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Here:
In Summary .
You could equally ask why anything exists.
Neutrons are a relatively stable arrangement of quarks. They can be formed in stars. A lot of them were formed in the big bang. That explains why we see them. On the other hand, there doesn't need to be teleological* reason for their existence.
The question of what they do is the more interesting one. In atomic nuclei they do all kinds of interesting things. They add mass to the nucleus. They help to stabilise nuclei against the force of electrical repulsion between protons. They affect the magnetic properties of the nucleus. etc. etc.
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* look it up.
You could even ask why mass exists. But there isn't any answer that makes much sense, because mass has physical units.
So you might as well ask why physical units exist. Which is not the same question as why do humans call units of mass kilograms.
That latter question will have the same kind of answer as the answer to the question, why do humans use the symbols they use to represent numbers (?).
Numbers don't have physical units. Though.
In support of which theory, I can cite the use of the various dimensionless numbers in physics. Numbers themselves don't have dimensions, nor do the logical 'values' true or false. Nor do the probabilities of coins being heads or tails.
Right James?
So you might as well ask why physical units exist. Which is not the same question as why do humans call units of mass kilograms.
That latter question will have the same kind of answer as the answer to the question, why do humans use the symbols they use to represent numbers (?).
Numbers don't have physical units. Though.
In support of which theory, I can cite the use of the various dimensionless numbers in physics. Numbers themselves don't have dimensions, nor do the logical 'values' true or false. Nor do the probabilities of coins being heads or tails.
Right James?
Right. But I think we should keep your problems with physical quantities in the separate thread where we have been discussing that topic. So I won't comment further on that here.
You mean the thread where you say you can't put mass in a bottle that's made of matter, which has mass?
Or where you say you can separate the mass from the bottle? That thread?
The one that makes you look like a moron?
Yes, that thread. Go there.
I don't say that. You do. Go to that thread. How hard is it to keep your nonsense confined to one thread? Sheesh.
There's no such thread.
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