What you will learn in Nuclear & Particle Physics

1. 1. A Force With a Very Short Leash

   Every proton in a nucleus repels every other. Something stronger is winning, but only just, and only at very close range.

2. 2. The Mass That Goes Missing

   Weigh the parts, weigh the whole, and the second number is smaller. What happened to the difference is the most useful question in nuclear physics.

3. 3. One Curve, Both Kinds of Nuclear Energy

   Split the heavy, join the light — two opposite-looking processes that turn out to be the same move from two directions.

4. 4. One Number Decides Everything

   The entire difference between a power station and a bomb is whether a certain number is 1.000 or 1.006.

5. 5. Why the Sun Should Not Shine

   Its core is a thousand times too cold to fuse anything. It fuses anyway, and the reason is the quantum tunnelling you met in the last module.

6. 6. A Clock With No Memory

   One equation covers a medical tracer that is gone by teatime and a rock that has been ticking since before the Earth had a crust.

7. 7. Seventeen Particles

   Everything you have ever touched is made of three of them. The other fourteen are just as real, and most of them will not stay still long enough to be part of anything.

8. 8. The Weakest Force Runs the Universe

   Gravity is 10³⁸ times feebler than the strong force and is nonetheless in charge of everything larger than a molecule.