Today’s educating bit of the day – learn a few tidbits about quantum physics and how everything ties together (not really). Learn a bit about light, matter, gravity, and more.
When small cannot get any smaller, you enter the quantum world of quarks, photons, and space-time foam. You’re welcome to take a look at this indivisible side of nature, but just remember to leave your common sense at the door.
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If you split a banana, and then split it again, and again, and again… you eventually get down to cells, molecules, atoms. Each atom has a nucleus of protons and neutrons, with tiny electrons buzzing around. Both protons and neutrons contain three quarks.
But the dissection stops there: electrons and quarks are the smallest pieces of ordinary matter.
Then again, that’s what they said first about the atom, then the proton/neutron/electron. Is that really the smallest piece? Or does the answer to that depend on what “ordinary matter” is? That’s not answered in the article, but I think it’s a question worth asking. I suppose in a few years, we’ll learn there really is something smaller.
[tags]Quantum physics in brief, On light and matter and other quantum things[/tags]