Is there an estimation of nuclear force between proton and neutron in deuteron to say What is the strong nuclear force between them? 1N? 10N? 100N? 1000N?
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It's about 10-100 times stronger than the electromagnetic repulsive force between two "nearly touching" protons because the dimensionless "strong coupling constant" is of order one while the corresponding "fine-structure constant" is $1/137.036$. The electrostatic force is $$ F = \frac{e^2}{4\pi\varepsilon_0\cdot (1\,{\rm fm})^2} = \frac{(1.602\cdot 10^{-19})^2}{4\pi\cdot 8.85\times 10^{-12}\cdot 10^{-30}} {\rm N} = 230\,{\rm N} $$ Amusingly enough, it's a reasonable force we know from the everyday life. The strong force could be 10,000 newtons, still reasonable – like the weight of one ton. But one must realize how extreme the force is in the proportion: the whole force doesn't act on a car but it acts on one elementary particle. |
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