CHAPTER 1: FERMIONS

Fermions are the elements that makes up matter. They have half-integer spin and also do obey The Pauli exclusion principle and The Fermi-Dirac Statistics (go to the previous post for a better introduction to fermions)

Nevertheless, the particles under the fermions family, ain't all friends; they are separated into two different types, viz:

1.1) Leptons, and
1.2) Quarks

ATTENTION
Please do know and don't forget that 'leptons' and 'quarks' are not names of fundamental particles but they are the two kinds of fermions. There are 6 fundamental particles under leptons and also 6 fundamental particles under quarks; making it a total of 12 Fermions.
Did you understand? If you don't, please read all over again. Hahahaha 

1.1 LEPTONS
Leptons is the name assigned to the matter forming particles that carries electric charge of 0 or -1. They are never affected by strong Nuclear forces (See my article on ALL THE FORCES IN PHYSICS).

Leptons are of two types, and they are:
a) Charged Leptons with the electrical charge of -1, and they includes (in the other of their increasing mass); 
i) Electron,
ii) Muon, and
iii) Tau

"Please note that Muon and Tau are never stable in existence, hence, they decay to form electrons and other particles which are more stable."

The Atom is Completed by the stable, negatively charged Electron.

b) Neutral Leptons (Neutrinos): which have zero charge and do not interact with anything. They are also very scarce and conspicuous. Moreover, each neutrino is associated to a particular charged lepton and is always seen when that lepton decays as follows;

i) Lightest Neutrino (Electron)
ii) Middle Neutrino (Muon)
iii) Heaviest Neutrinos (Tau)

"It is very much allowed to address a neutrino by the name of the charged lepton it is associated to.E.g. The Lightest neutrino can be called the electron neutrino also."

A non-charged lepton cannot be seen in the decay of another charged lepton that it's not associated with - They have some unsettled family issues , just kidding. 

Some examples of composite particles (FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES combine to form COMPOSITE particles, okay?) formed by leptons includes;

a) The atom is completed by the electron(the most popular lepton)
b) The Positronium is formed by an electron and an antielectron.



1.2 QUARKS
Quarks are leptons with the charges of 2/3 or -1/3. There are six flavors (types) of quarks,
a,b) UP and DOWN quarks,
c,b) CHARM and STRANGE quarks, and
e,f) TOP and BOTTOM quarks

The Up, Charm and Top quarks have a charge of 2/3 while the other three has the charge of -1/3.

Quarks are never found in their separate forms like you may find that lepton named electron (others must be jealous of him, hahaha) and the 'reserved' neutrinos.

Quarks combine with great force carrying particles (we'll talk about this later on chapter 2: BOSONS) to form composite particles called HADRONS.

a) A hadron formed by three quarks is called a BARYON, examples are the;
i) Protons (formed from two UP quarks and one DOWN quark; uud)
ii) Neutrons (formed from two DOWN quarks and one UP quarks; udd)

The Quark Structure of the Neutron and Proton.

b) Finally, a hadron formed from just one quark and an antiquark is called a MESON
examples is the PION (can be formed by an up quark with an anti-down quark  )

So that is it on FERMIONS for now.

Hope that was short enough?

Any questions OR comments, please don't forget to drop them.

That's the topic your high school physics textbook didn't contain completely.
Enjoy!

FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES

CONTINUED FROM: INTRODUCTION TO FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES

Nice and simple introduction right? Now lets go down to business. What do we mean by Fundamental particles?

Fundamental Particles can be defined as the smallest, indivisible particles that forms matter and determines their properties and interaction with other matters

(Sounding more like the earlier definition of atoms right? haha)

Anyway, fundamental particles are divided into two groups, namely;
1) The Fermions, and
2) The Boson.

Let's discuss briefly on these two groups before we 'delve' into them fully.

FERMIONS (Matter Forming Particles)
Fermions are like the 'building blocks' of matter. They come together by the help of force carrying particles to make matter.

Fermions are the building blocks of matter.

The Spin of Fermions are always half-integer spins like 1/2, 3/2, 5/2, etc; this makes them able to obey;

a) the Fermi-Dirac Statistics: which in Physics, is the branch of quantum statistics used to calculate the permitted energy arrangements of the particles in a system in terms of the exclusion principle (thefreedictionary.com, 2013), and
b) the Pauli's Exclusion Principle: the quantum mechanical principle which states that no two identical fermions may occupy the same quantum state at the same time (Wikipedia.org, 2013)

BOSONS (Force Carrying Particles)
While fermions as the building blocks, bosons are the 'cementing agents' that holds them together as I mentioned earlier.

Bosons holds matter together.

Bosons were first theorized even before they were observed and even one of them, the graviton, is yet to be observed.
Fermions interacted with each other by exchanging force carrying particles with one another. These force carrying particles are of different natures and strengths and are peculiar to a given type of force.
Bosons have integer spins like 0, 1, 2, 3, etc; and hence they obey;
a) Bose-Einstein Statistics: a version of fermi-dirac statistics that applies to boson.

Note: that the use of the phrase 'cementing agents' to describe bosons does not mean that all of them are as strong as cements. It was used to create a close-enough mental picture.

On my next article, we would go deep into... YOU CHOOSE:
FERMIONS or BOSONS.

Don't Forget to drop your comments and questions.
And if you like it, SHARING is free.
Physics is FUN.

INTRODUCTION TO FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES

Physics is a broad branch of pure science which 'bothers' itself with the existence of matter and how they interact with each other and space. And now that antimatters have been discovered, that definition would probably be needing a review, hahaha.

But the point I really want to make from this definition is that physics isn't really complete until we answer the question:
WHAT IS MATTER REALLY MADE OF?
Or better put; WHAT ARE THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF MATTER?

It's funny enough to know that some people used to believe that matter was composed of four elements: Water, Fire, Air, and Earth; like you see in the Nickelodeon cartoon series, The Avatar. Some other beliefs added Wood and Metal to the list.

Avatar: The Legend of Korra Characters with the presumed four elements.

Not until science stumbled into the 'indestructible' and 'indivisible' ATOMS. Anyway, we all know that the atom didn't hold those titles for so long; at least, not after we found out that it is made up of some other particles - the SUBATOMIC PARTICLES. These particles includes,
a) The Positively charged Proton;
b) The Negatively charged Electron;
c) and the neutral Neutron.

But, Are we there yet? NO!

All the above mentioned subatomic particles are not fundamental (apart from the electrons - at least for now). It was discovered that the proton and neutron had building elements. These elements has been organized into groups and called FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES.

And for the rest of this week, I'll spend time to explain these particles one after the other.
Are you ready?

Click to CONTINUE.

HOW ORDERED IS TIME?

Time...
(Source: www.ocvote.com, 2013)

Everyone, on default, just start thinking that time is always rigid and will keep moving forward at a constant rate like a uniformly speeding bullet in space. But how true is this?

It's no news again, since special relativity arrived, that time can actually do the following;
1. Slow down (with increase in speed as seen in rockets),
2. Speed up (with increase in altitude as seen in satellites),
3. And come to a halt (when gravity gets as high as infinity as theorized in black holes).

• But how 'ordered' is time?
• Can time go back?

ANSWER 1:
Let's take a look at something that happens in the DOUBLE SLIT EXPERIMENT as an example.

First, i have to describe this experiment for everyone to understand.

Title: DOUBLE SLIT EXPERIMENT
Aim: To study the behavior of photons as they travel from one end of a tube to the other.
Description:
1.The Tube used in this experiment has a light source at one end, and a camera at the other end.
2.Between the Light source and the camera, a flat boundary is inserted that has two straight and parallel openings (or slits) through which the photon should pass through.
3.Single photons of light will be shot from the light source to pass through the slits and arrive at the camera.

During the experiment,
-A boundary with just one slit was first used.
RESULT: the photons were observed to pass through the single slit and arrive at the camera randomly - this is normal.

-The experiment was now done again. This time, the boundary with just one slit was now removed and replaced with the one that has a double slit.

EXPECTATION: was that each photon should pass through one of the slits and arrive randomly like normal.

Expected Result
(Source: www.mysearch.org.uk, 2013)

But this was not the result. Read on;

RESULT: an interference pattern was seen on the screen.

Fringes occurs on screen.

This result implies that,
1.each photon interfered with themselves, and
2.passed through both slits at the same time.


THIS MEANS THAT DURING THIS EXPERIMENT, EACH PHOTON ACTUALLY EXISTED AT TWO DIFFERENT PLACES AND AT TWO DIFFERENT TIMES.


That is, time fragmented or separated.
So I ask, How ordered do you think that time is here? was it actually moving uniformly forward? Answer!


ANSWER 2:
Also, it has been proved one paper that time can move backwards with the help of WORMHOLES.

A Wormhole

Wormholes are tiny passage between universe. Manipulating them to get a time tunnel in which both ends exists at two different places with different time is very theoretically possible. In other words, time travelling backwards here, is theoretically possible.

Don't fail to drop your questions and comments.
A very big thanks to Dr. Michio Kaku for his Video on TIME.
Enjoy!

THE ANOMALOUS EXPANSIVITY OF WATER

Let's talk about this today pals.

Generally, its accepted in physics that on HEATING an object, the inter-molecular forces will start weakening due to increased vibration of the molecules; as a result, the object will start expanding - INCREASE IN VOLUME or REDUCTION IN DENSITY.
On the other way, COOLING an object makes the degree of vibration of the molecules reduce, hence, they start coming to rest; thereby, they Contract - REDUCTION IN VOLUME and INCREASE IN DENSITY.

This principle is applied in mechanical constructions to fit parts together. A part can be cooled to become smaller, so as to fit into another or they be heated to expand and get loosened - thanks to physics.

But something amazes us when it comes to WATER, it actually obeys this law when been cooled till it gets to 4 Degrees Celsius; then it gets anomalous - instead of contracting, its starts expanding, oh my gosh!

Also, on heating an Ice (from say -10 degrees Celsius), it will start contracting till 4 degrees Celsius, then it 'regains its senses' and begins to expand like every other object.

WHY THIS BEHAVIOR?
Water behaves like this due to the presence of dominating Hydrogen bonds in it that tends to become stronger from 4 degrees Celsius downward.
(Read more on this through this link)

NOW WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS?
This implies that, unlike other substances, the density of water in its SOLID STATE is lower than its LIQUID STATE density. In other words, the solid of water floats in its liquid, brilliant!

An Iceberg  is a frozen water but floats
(Source: www.123rf.com, 2013)

This is why we have,
1. Floating Icebergs.
2. Broken coke bottles due to over freezing, lol.
3. More sea animals alive; yeah because,
a) If Icebergs sink, they will kill a lot of sea creatures you like.
b) also, some unfrozen water get to be trapped beneath the frozen ice layer and will usually remain unfrozen since ice is a poor conductor of heat.
4. Frozen oceans we can actually Ski on, for those that lives towards to the North Pole.

Water is Special... Its not just a source of life, but a wonder!

Is Physics not Fun?
Like, Share and Comment.

MACH - WHAT IS IT?

The Concord is an airliner that can get to a Supersonic speed of about Mach 2+

Have you heard or read of a unit called Mach?
It is a derived unit of speed, named after the physicist, Ernst Mach.
The mach value for any magnitude of velocity can be gotten by dividing the velocity with the speed of sound in air (~ 330m/s). Then the value you get, is now a mach.
Note: unlike other units in physics, the magnitude is read or written after mach.
E.g. Mach 2 or M 2.

MACH VALUES
Different Ranges or values of Mach has a name. They are;
1. Subsonic: M < 1
2. Tran-sonic: M = 1
3. Supersonic: 1 < M < 3
4. High Supersonic: 3 < M < 5
5. Hyper-sonic: 5 < M < 10
6. High Hyper-sonic: 10 < M < 25
7. Re-entry Speed: M < 25

The value of M, is used in fluid Mechanics (a branch of physics) to model the properties of an object as it moves through a fluid like air.
This helps to know the actual drag and lift forces acting on the surface of the moving body and in turn, it helps Aerodynamics engineers to produce efficient and safe designs like the ones your see in Rockets and Jets.

It all starts with PHYSICS.

Hope you enjoyed it? Because PHYSICS IS FUN.

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WAVE PARTICLE DUALITY OF LIGHT: SUMMARISED - PART ONE

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Light is undoubtedly a type of wave and at the same time, it still exhibits properties that only a particle would exhibit. Now the issue is why?

First lets discuss on what properties makes light a wave.

LIGHT AS A WAVE

Light is a wave, it exhibits all the known properties of waves. From the first to the fifth. Now let us take a quick view through all of these wave-like properties and see the cases where light exhibits them...

1. Refection
probably the most common and explains how we see our images in a mirror.

2. Refraction
the bending of light rays. It explains why a light bends when it changes medium; why a straw appears broken in a clear glass of water and even extends to apparent depth.

3. Interference:
When two identical waves meet in the same medium, they interact with each other in order to strengthen themselves(Constructive) or to destroy(destructive) themselves. This exhibits this too like other waves.

4. Diffraction

Single slit Diffraction of Light
(Source: cronodon.com, 2013. Image was also edited)

Diffraction is the bending of waves when they pass through an opening lower than their wavelength. This is applicable in reading a CD or DVD disc.
Read more on interference and Diffraction here.


5.Polarization
Polarization is the change in the plan of oscillation of light waves. Its occurrence in nature makes the sky appear blue and is used in many other fields.

Light isn't just a wave, it has a family called ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES it has all their properties. From their common velocity (c= 2.997 x 10^8m/s) to a perfect place in their frequency(400-790THz) and wavelength(380-750nm) spectrum.

Light in the Electromagnetic Spectrum
Source: www.itseducation.asia

LIGHT AS A PARTICLE

Wow, now light is a particle too. It has properties that only particles would exhibit.

1. Light supports the view that its is a stream of particles called PHOTONS.
This was postulated by Albert Einstein. Photons are the smallest unit of radiant energy. They are like small particles that makes up light waves.
-The greater the number of photons, the greater the intensity of light.
-The higher the frequency of oscillation of the photons, the more energy they carry.
This energy is given as E=hf;
where, E = Energy of oscillation of photon
h = Planck's constant (6.63 × 10^-34 m2kg/s)
f = frequency of oscillation.

2.It obeys the law of conservation of momentum, in fact, it can knock off other 'particles' and transfer energy to them.
This is seen in an phenomenon known as the Compton effect.

The Compton Effect

Source: whs.wsd.wednet.edu

This is seen in cases where light rays are used to liberate electrons from the surface of metals (Read Photo Electric Effect). It is noticed that the energy the electrons, leaving the surface of the metal possesses, approximately equal to the energy of the colliding photon. This means that, the laws of conservation of momentum and energy has been obeyed.

Continue to WAVE PARTICLE DUALITY OF LIGHT: SUMMARIZED - PART TWO