Recent content by Helicobacter

the question is: why is the neutron not kicked out of the atom per se. why does a transformation need to occur first of all, and secondly why is it exactly these 3 particles and not any other n particles with the same mass as the neutron (say 4 particles each with mass [neutron mass]/4)?

thx for taking the time to asnwer all of the questions

so that means it will transform into another atom?? and how does nature decide that it will shed this combination of particles? i mean its nice and convenient: we have neutrinos and electrons and protons in nature already so its good to stay consistent with the same "lego pieces" but its still...

i thought in beta decay what is shed out by the atom is an electron?

any nontrivial subset of answers is appreciated.

thx for ur asnwer reg. your last statement i claim: a particular proton has 100% probability of being anywhere in the universe at time t. am i wrong? and we all see constantly pics of the pdf of the electron cloud but never of the proton cloud...how does the shape of the pdf of the proton...

1. How do we observe what goes through in a slit in the double slit experiment? If this is accomplished with EM that goes across the slit, then why does the electron not completely change its direction before it hits the wall. It still always hit the wall where you expect it to, even though the...

1. How is the size of an atom defined? Shouldn't it be the size of the universe? Is it defined as: The max span of an isolated electron cloud, such that the c.d.f. will equal .95? 2. How do we know force carriers/bosons exist? Have they been directly observed or are they just hypothesized to...

when it comes to practical applications, yes. i should have specified the question to be at the natural/theoretical level.

also the hypothetical supersymmatric partner particles are not listed because they haven't been observed

thanks. i didnt even know about "Bell's Theorem and Aspect's experiments" even though I'm a layman, i will agree with you on CMB for the last 25 years. EDIT: actually this does not fall in the last 25 years. also, Ed Witten & Grigori Perelmann might have solved some of the hardest mathematical...

How long is the lifespan of a tau electron? Is it much less abundant than muons? Why aren't antiparticles, dark matter particles, the graviton and the higgs boson on this diagram?

And what has been the greatest discovery in the last 50 years? QED? For 100 years, it's clearly general relativity.

Are second generation fermions less abundant than first generation fermions and third generation fermions much less abundant than second generation fermions? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg

1. the probability of finding anyone particular electron on any finite interval in the universe is nonzero...does that imply that a string is as long as the universe? 2. why do strings only vibrate at certain frequences?