I think it's kinda interesting that there's a whole universal force that kinda goes uncommented upon in popular physics. I also don't know anything about the strong nuclear force, but I heard someone say once that it's actually just electromagnetism on a small scale? If there was, like, a good documentary that centers the history and experiments that lead researchers to conclude the existence of these things, that would be helpful. Being able to situate research in historical context really goes a long way to getting my head around a concept.
Honestly I would be extremely sceptical of answers in this thread. I have a physics degree and the wreck of a PhD in doing chemistry with electron microscopes. For all the QMy shit I did the most answer I ever got on the electroweak was like "it's the reason atomic decay halflives aren't infinity" and "it has something to do with Z+ (wtf?!????!)".
I think this is really one for the true boffins. Those strange joyless ghosts of pure theory. Like if someone hear has an actual postgrad in this shit please chime in but until then assume we're all idiots.
Also if you want to think about something cool think about why the stupid vibrating balls vibrate faster more further model of thermal expansion you were probs taught in highschool is such obvious bullshit. The real answer is this beautiful energy well you can see on slide 5: https://www.nonmet.mat.ethz.ch/education/courses/Materialwissenschaft_1/Downloads_HS_2007/slides_chapter_3.pdf idk if it's just me but when I learned that it pulled a splinter from my brain that had been there for like 15 years.
that's a helpful graph. i've become very skeptical of particles lately. Feels like things are easier to understand when i think about them as wobbly nebulous fields - electromagnetic stuff especially. "sharing an electron" isn't nearly so clear as just thinking of it as the bit where two fields overlap. Particles seem like a cheep trick to make the sums easier.
There is no reason to be skeptical of particle models if they are accurate for the domain you’re working in. Quantum mechanics is true at microscopic scales but you can still think in terms of classical physics for a lot of stuff.
Also, particles do exist in a real sense. The various forces are actually mediated by messenger particles, or “localized wave packets” or “field excitations” or whatever you want to call them.
As Feynman once explained: Quantum objects do not behave like particles or waves. They are novel and unfamiliar to our experience although this or that characteristic might have analogy to something we are familiar with, like a wave or a particle.
Physics is very complicated and every practical calculation involves simplifying assumptions to make it calculable. In my astro courses it was often acceptable to be within an order of magnitude or two, which is kind of hilarious, but points to the large effect of those simplifying assumptions.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Yeah I mean a lot of the time it is, although sometimes the waveform becomes localised enough that things do behave pretty particle like. For example in the ESEM chemistry shit I did electrons really do behave like billiard balls bashing into shit and ionising it. Ion bombardment is another case like in lithography or sputtering.
I think keeping the dual nature of matter in mind is very useful, but also models are just models and you have to keep your assumptions in mind or you get bitten.