by Playfuls Staff |
12th July 2006
A U.S. research team is reporting a breakthrough in calculations needed to understand the nuclear force generated by the motion of quarks and gluons. [more]
The scientists say understanding such forces may lead to solving some basic conundrums: What if the tiniest components of matter were somehow different from the way they exist now, would matter as we know it be the same? Would humans even exist?
The basic equations that describe nuclear force have been known since the 1970s, but physicists still know very little of how the force binds protons and neutrons into the nuclei of atoms.
Now researchers using a supercomputer and a method called lattice quantum chromodynamics have been able to calculate interactions among neutrons and protons from the properties of quarks and gluons. Those calculations represent a first step toward understanding how nuclear forces emerge from the interactions between quarks and gluons.
The study, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, was conducted by scientists from the University of Washington, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Maryland and the College of William and Mary.
The research is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
© 2006 UPI
