Why the strong force behaves this way - repulsion at close distance, and then switching to strong attraction with very short fall-off - is a core mystery of quantum mechanics and nuclear theory. That having been said, Don Hotson's analysis of the Dirac's equation as a TOE (theory of everything) has a very plausible explanation of the strong force, predicting both the very close repulsion and the strong attraction. This part of the description is in his 2nd paper, but you will need to read his first paper to understand the second.
The strong attraction is an exchange force - sort of like a chemical bond of electrons, but with the components of the nucleon being shared between two nucleons. This sharing can only happen at a very small distance. The exchange force reminds me of the force between a magnet and its iron keeper - extremely strong at short distance and very weak at longer distance. Not sure this is a good physics analogy, but it comes to mind as I think about it. I find Hotson's analysis of what Dirac's equation implies to be very compelling. It really throws conventional quantum mechanics back on its heels! I have his papers, but there have been links to them several times in Vortex. Bob Higgins On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 9:10 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote: > But why does the force fall off with such a high power relationship with > respect to separation? If there are more than 3 spatial dimensions then > some of the acting flux might leak off into those mystery regions. > Otherwise, I am having a difficult time visualizing why it is not limited > in a manner similar to that seen with electromagnetic fields. Of course, > if the effects are explained as a result of experiments then one is left > with this question unanswered. > > Are we using data that is generated by curve fitting to observations as > compared to understanding the true physical phenomena underlying those > observations? If true, then there is a limited opportunity available to > anticipate new, so far unseen, forces that might come into play under new > conditions. LENR might be one of a family of possibilities waiting to be > discovered as better instrumentation is developed. Of course, serendipity > has its place in physics as it has always led to most of the major > discoveries. It has been said, "I'd rather be lucky than good." > > Dave > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> > To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> > Sent: Fri, Sep 11, 2015 10:32 am > Subject: Re: [Vo]:time, separation and neutron tunneling cross section > > On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 8:47 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> > wrote: > > Does anyone know why this interaction varies as the sixth power of >> separation? > > > Just to clarify -- the nuclear force is the one that drops off with the > sixth power (per Robin). The speculative relationship between the > "interaction half-life" and the separation distance is unknown, although it > would be great to know what it is. (I was just providing an example of > what it might be.) > > At the scale of nucleons the strong force, called the residual strong > force, or nuclear force, in this context, is what is left over from the > interaction of quarks and gluons within nucleons. The nuclear force is > effective at 1 fm, and the nucleons are bound together within the nucleus > through the exchange of mesons, which are quite massive. The more massive > the force carrier, the shorter its range. In contrast to the residual > strong force, the force carrier of the strong force is the gluon, which is > massless and interacts with quarks. (Credit for this goes to Wikipedia.) > > (I wonder if this means the range of gluons is far, and if not, why not.) > > Eric > >
