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What exactly do mesons do?
I know they're force carriers. Which force in particular are they involved with. If I were to remove them from an atom, what would this do to it?
1 Answer
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
In the current model of the nucleus, pi-mesons are the "glue" that holds it together. The model shows the protons and neutrons in the nucleus as having a cloud of pions (pi-mesons) surrounding them. When another proton or neutron gets close, they want to take the pions from each other. Its like two kids fighting over a basketball. The protons and neutrons dont want each other, but they both want the pions really really bad. This force between them is the strong nuclear force. If it werent for this, the coulomb repulsion force between the protons would destroy the nucleus.
