It can be both concerning and amazing that even nowadays, quantum physicists learn more about atoms and how their components behave. Who knows what wonders or bad news nature can show us?
There are not a few scientists who believe that if you want to understand how the “big stuff” in the Universe works, such as planets, stars, or galaxies, you need to study the “microuniverse” as much as possible. This means that you need to learn more about that quantum realm that works in a completely bizarre way compared to classical physics. Studying the atom and its components, such as protons, represents a good way to start.
Protons can have an extra quark that behaves weird
Protons, meaning those particles that form an atom’s nucleus along with neutrons, are also made of smaller particles known as quarks. Those quarks are of different types, such as up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top. While a proton is usually made of one down quark and two up quarks, a new study brings some pretty peculiar results.
According to space.com, the new research shows that a charm quark becomes significantly less massive if it dwells inside a proton. Otherwise, charm quarks are 1.5 times more massive than protons.
How is this possible? Remember when scientists told the world in various documentaries that the quantum world is based on probabilities rather than chances, such as the classical physics works?
To explain the new findings, it’s not that hard once you look at them from a different perspective. The chance for the charm quark to appear in a proton is small. That allows for the small probability and high mass to cancel each other out.
In case you still haven’t had enough of the mysterious way atoms work, you can keep this in mind: the nucleus of an atom, which consists of protons and neutrons, is thousands of times smaller than the atom itself. This means that atoms are over 99.99% “empty.”
You can find a new study on the subject in Nature.
