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Articles: My Thoughts | In quest of Infinity-06
- Prof. venkata ramanamurty mallajosyula
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Physicists realised that the physics of matter revolves around two basic entities. 1) Basic building blocks, and 2) forces via which these building blocks interact with each other.
Bulk matter is obtained when the basic building blocks are put together according to some rules; it is rather like building a building using say bricks.
There are four basic forces in Nature. They are: 1) The gravitational force, 2) the electromagnetic force, 3) the [so-called] weak force, and 4) the strong force.
Each of these forces operates in its own way. Also, they are of different strengths. Further, each force comes into its own on some scale of length.
This figure shows the relative strengths of the four forces on a distance scale of about 10-20 cm. I have chosen this scale of length because outside the nucleus, the strong force does not operate; so also the weak force. Gravity and electromagnetic forces on the other hand, operate all the way to the edge of the Universe! They are thus long-range forces, as compared to the other two which operate only on a very short range.
An important caveat regarding the relative strength of the four forces. Suppose one goes to very small scales of length, like say 10-40 cm. This is an incredibly small distance, too small to be imagined! Yet, physicists do consider such small distances, because that is important when we consider matters like the Big Bang. And you know what? At those unimaginably small distance, gravity which otherwise seems like a puny fellow becomes a goliath! That story would come later.
Mystifying Story of Matter
I am sure all this must be rather mystifying and so let me add several explanatory notes and comments, starting with the so-called building blocks. Actually, here the views have changed quite a bit over the last few centuries. At the time of Newton when the atomic theory of matter simply did not exist, there was no question of building blocks of matter. This has an important implication.
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