"Gord Sellar" wrote
> Oooh ooh ooh!
> Robert Shaw wrote:
> >It's more complex than that.
> >
> >The strong force is conveyed by mesons (at least in a low
> >energy approximation) but it isn't a fundamental force. The
> >fundamental force is the colour force, with the strong force
> >merely being the Van der Waals equivalent.
>
> Huh? Van Der wha? What's the color force? If you have something prewritten
> about this, let me know where I can go look at it. I am lost by the second
> sentence of this post. Or should I just go read Mr. Feyman some more?
>
The Van der Waals force is the residual electric force between neutral
atoms.
The electric fields of the electrons and nucleus don't exactly cancel.
Small electric fields are left which fall off faster than inverse square.
If two atoms are nearby than each atom's electrons will move slightly
in the field produced by the other atom, altering the force. Typically
the resulting force is neglible at distance, slightly attractive when atoms
are within a few atomic radii of each other, and strongly repulsive when
they touch.
The colour force is the force between quarks. There are three types of
colour charge, conventionally called red, green and blue, and eight types
of gluon which transmit the field. The gluons themselves have colour charge.
Like colour charges repel. Unlike charges attract, but only with half the
strength.
Colour charge can't be isolated because the strength of the colour field
increases with increasing distance, for complex reasons to do with the
charges on the gluons. Protons and neutrons have no net colour charge,
just as atoms have no net electric charge, but in both cases the cancelation
isn't perfect, producing residual forces.
Robert
