Most teachers today are neither good in studies nor good in any of the fields of profession. I used to hate them until I realized that nothing is perfect and so it’s okay if teachers are not perfect. If you think about it, none of the scientists have all the answers and they can’t teach you everything!
Maybe a slight tangent, but alpha decay is actually quite special compared to other spontaneous fission (which only happens for really heavy unstable nuclei). This is because the helium-4 nucleus is a lot more stable than you'd expect if you only considered the factors in this video, especially its small size, which means not a lot of nuclear binding energy per nucleon, or equivalently, a large surface area to volume ratio. The next effect that contributes to the binding energy / mass defect after the Pauli energy described here would be the pairing energy, where even numbers of protons or neutrons are favoured because of spin coupling, and it turns out that this effect is stronger for smaller nuclei. So helium-4 actually gets a significant boost to its binding energy because it's a small even - even nucleus (the smallest with an equal number of protons and neutrons too, so we optimise both the Pauli energy and the pairing energy). But, further to this, the helium-4 nucleus is also doubly magic; its two protons and two neutrons each completely fill their 1s orbitals, having no orbital angular momentum alongside cancelling each other's spin. All together, this means that alpha particles are small enough to be likely to tunnel out of a nucleus (although still it's impressive given that they are 4 whole nucleons), but also energetically favourable enough that this can happen even for nuclei of non-extreme size. As an example, consider beryllium-8. Naively, you might expect this to be a nice stable nucleus given the information in this video; it's quite small so you might expect a stable nucleus of this size to prefer an equal number of protons and neutrons, and beryllium-8 has 4 of each - perfect. It's also an even-even nucleus, even better. Being light, you might expect it to favour fusion over fission due to the surface area effect. Nonetheless, it's about as unstable as a nucleus could possibly be; it almost instantly splits into 2 alpha particles, and that's all thanks to the extreme stability of the alpha particle above this approximate trend (and the fact that you get 2 alphas for the price of 1 decay).
Great tangent!!! So much for me to research. Thanks!!! If you have any source that dives into great details about all this, I would highly appreciate it. Thank you :)
@@Mahesh_Shenoy another tangent, check the new "Visualizing the Nuclei" by MIT, not all nuclei are spherical even, and Lithium11 has two satellite neutrons!
Half life is like 10^-17 sec. Nature really really favours its 2 little Brothers He-4 over poor old Be-8. You dont happen to know the relative stability increase between mother and daughter nuclides? If half life and stability increase are somewhat inversly correlated, the stability increase must be enormous.
@@quitchibooThe change in mass / energy is only about 91keV. It's just that it being energetically favourable at all is rare for light elements, and only really possible for a few light nuclides that can decay into 2 alpha particles (greatly reducing the mass of the daughter products by the special stability of the alpha), or are beyond the proton/neutron drip line in either direction from He-4, and lose protons / a neutron to become an alpha particle (which could also be seen as alpha decay instead). The main things that make this decay so fast are probably 1) in general, if it's energetically favourable, a decay mediated by the strong (nuclear) force will be many orders of magnitude faster / more likely that a decay mediated by the weak nuclear force, and 2) Be-8 is especially strange in that, in its ground state, it is a very deformed nucleus that's basically already just a resonance of 2 alpha particles, meaning it's an especially low barrier to split. I'm no expert though, so someone can let me know if I'm missing things. Also worth noting that the fact that Be-8 can exist at all is essential for the triple alpha process. So although it has a short half-life, it's significantly better than nothing.
This is seriously impressive, one of the best science channels out there on RUclips, you put so much effort into each video. I feel like i'm being sucked into this video.
Before Watching..The actual answer, as all the (crazily ignored) evidence shows, is that Neutrons are a Positron + Electron in a 'sub-orbital' that can bond with lone Protons. Excess neutrons don't have enough protons to bond to. Geometry and Quantum Gravity play a role too.... After watching... Same old fundamental misunderstanding parroted by another youtuber stuck in a box. Nicely presented though, even if hilariously wrong. QUARKS DO NOT EXIST!
Yep, it must have taken ages to get his rolodex filled with all those scientists he can have discussions with to help us understand. :) It feels like listening to a podcast of him talking with people like Newton, Einstein, etc. discussing the basics of science. It is absolutely one of the best RUclips channels out there and I think his subscriber count deserves at least an extra digit.
His approache reminds me of the explanation style in the book How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog by Chad Orzel. It's always exciting to see an effective science teacher in their element. Pun intended.
Excellent video. I'm an electrical engineer, amateur astronomer, and physics tutor. I've never had as strong an understanding until after viewing this.
more to the point, why didn't they teach us this in high school?! - its super simple - I remember the graph and have always wondered why it was shaped that way - obviously not enough to look it up myself though .. I had to wait for youtube to be invented and then FHP to arrive and explain it 🤣
@@alastair4839because there are so many other topics that these teachers have to cover in such a short time span, and frankly you all ask way too much out of your teachers. The majority only know a bit more than the average high schooler on this topic, and those that know way more are industries thay pay substantially more money or are professors.
@@alastair4839Have ypu tried teaching a class? I mean, I love this explaination, and so would some students. For many others they would zone out and loose much of the rest of the lesson that way. It is not as easy as "add a 5 minute explaination to my lesson".
Watching your videos every single moment I realise how exact those wise words of Feynman were. "If you find science difficult, you are learning it from a wrong teacher" You literally made me science lover 🧡
It is good, I'd like to know if this still tracks at the quark level. Is the gluon binding energy strong enough that the 3 quarks inside will always stay in step re. their energy levels? I know they have different colour changes so they're not violating the exclusion principle that way, but is it that straight forward?
This was absolute golden example of Emily Reihl's saying: "if you dont understand something, come back in 5 years, someone would make an explanation for it that would make sense" Thank you
This is BRILLIANT!!! I'm a lurker, but I just HAD TO comment this time. What an amazing video. You just explained WHY the universe is made of these particular building blocks in a way that anyone can understand. And the title is so modest. Even "the Element of Life" does not prepare a person for the grand scope of this video! Oh, and that ad segue was absolutely shameless. I love it! Mahesh, thank you!
The moment you applied Pauli’s exclusion principle to the nucleus a moment of revelation swept over me. I am not a scientist, just a fan… but I try to understand the fundamentals as best I can. This video is an excellent boost to an intuitive understanding (which in many other cases has to be sacrificed to simply acknowledging that the mathematics is correct).
Your channel has quickly become one of my favorites in this field. As a chronic "But why is that? ... But then why is THAT?" interrogator, much to my parents' and teachers' chagrin, I love your ability to explain advanced physical phenomena in ways that are both elegant, easy to understand and novel all at the same time. I love those "oh it all makes sense now" moments when the penny finally drops, and your channel serves those moments all. the. freaking. time 😍. Keep doing what you're doing, and more of it! 😄😄
I love this channel so much. I'm 65 years old, and have always had a layman's fascination with particle physics and quantum physics. I'm fairly smart, but the kind of math that is required to really understand those things is something that I've never been able to master. I really appreciate your ability to make physics more accessible and understandable, as well as your enthusiasm.
I am a bit older than you and I also don't like mathematics. May I recommend one book which explaining everything in Physics without mathematics? - "Theory of Everything in Physics and The Universe"
hey, if you really want to, you can still learn the math required for the formal understanding! im not sure on what books are good, but the math sorcerer's youtube channel has tons of book recommendations for maths & physics from start to 'finish', if you're interested.
This is the best, most intuitive explanation of alpha decay, beta decay, and nuclear stability that I have ever seen. Awesome job here, and no math needed at all!
This is a nice explanation, which leads deeper into the rabbit hole of science. New questions unlocked: 1) Why is the strong force so short ranged? 2) What determines the threshold at which a nucleus starts expelling alpha particles, what prohibits the increasingly high energy neutrons? 3) Why would there be another "island of stability" somewhere very high up, does the answer for question 2 suddenly become invalid?
1) idk any reason why and I doubt anyone does. But it does follow from experiment. Same sort of thing as the 1/r^2 dependence in Coulombs law. 2) Has to do with quantum tunneling. Can only happen because particles are waves. This is a random process. It only happens before the end of the universe when the energy barrier is not too high and not too wide. 3) ?
Your shirt should say "I am" instead of "I am a" because the images read "acute tea pi" which is "a cutie pie" so whole thing becomes "I am a a cutie pie"
i guess.. many would just skip the the two a's because humans tend to read these repetitions only once without noticing any difference. i skipped two 'the's too lol did you notice?
It took *me* so long to figure out the rebus because I thought the cup was coffee. I wish there had been a teabag tag hanging over the side of the cup.
Atomphysicist here. Good video but you missed the connection between the liquid drop model (strong force interaction surface) and the nuclear shell model (pauli). The energy levels are not equidistant but get closer with higher n. Also the null energy noveau for the neurtron starts lowerl then that protons thus allowing an asymmatry between the number of electron and the number of proton both with small atoms and large ones. This also explains why the higher you go the more neutron you get. The distance between the neutron levels are getting smaller faster then the that of the protons.
I figured it was something like this! He started the video with "more neutrons doesnt neccesarily mean nore stable" and explained why thats true very nicely before ending the video with "more neutrons is more stable!" Thanks for this comment!
@@artembolshakov3901 no, protons (and neutrons) are fermions. They are made up of three quarks with 1/2 spin each, e.g. if you combine up (with +1/2 spin), up (-1/2 spin) and down (+1/2), you'll get a proton with a spin of +1/2 - If all of them have +1/2-spin, it's a Δ+ -Baryon with a +3/2-spin.
Is this because to have a bunch of particles of the same charge sign together means you have to out in energy to push them together, therefore effectively increasing the energy in the protons?
I did a PhD in nuclear physics, studying barely bound nuclei in excess of neutrons (maybe you did it somewhere else but distinguishing between "bound" and "stable" worth a video if you didn't), they were of course unstable, but had some peculiarity that gave then ms to s half life (which is very long in regard to the typical decay they should have gone through). That's the kind of content I would ave loved when being lost in the equations trying to make any sense of it. I left that field almost entirely for years, and that video is a nice reminder :-) I greatly appreciate how you can present quite sharp concepts in a very accessible and intuitively understandable form, without bad oversimplifications, and always pointing out where you left aside a complex underlying stuff that the simplification masks. Thanks 🙂
I would like to discuss this in regards to fusion. I've been reading about aligning nuclei to increase fusion rates. I've always thought of neutrons as having a charge moment like the covalent bond of two atoms. A neutron can emit an electron and become a proton so on some level, it must act as if those charges exist even briefly. This would explain why a single proton and neutron are stable, and even numbers of these pairs. A gluon has no charge but can move the charge between the proton neutron pair.
@@capnbilll2913 The video is good for a low level audience, but do not provide a real physical mechanism for the stability and instability of atoms. There is something which is significant clue - The "Mass Deficit" and the "Mass Excess" of nucleus.Answering this question will solve the puzzle - Why the atoms with three electron shells have Mass Deficit and why the atoms with 4, 5, 6, electron shells have mass Excess? Also why the elements with Seven electron shells are unstable? - Can you fill that there is something significant in three + three shells, not the number of neutrons? - There is one book which is explaining these puzzles - "Theory of Everything in Physics and The Universe"
@@Orion15-b9j Look up the calculations for Mass Deficit and Mass Excess. The math conversion is straight forward for someone with a high school education, requiring no calculus, just a little persistence in gathering the constants and conversion numbers.
@@hanksimon1023 I thing that a person with high school education will know that before somebody start calculating something He must know what exactly calculating. Main stream science do not know what causing physical Attraction and for this reason they invented "Gluons" Person in high school will know that you can propel something with particles, but you will never pull back anything with particles... so... what exactly is the Physical reason for Mass Deficit and Mass Excess?... According to what?
No way this guy answered one of my biggest questions surrounding physics while also being the most entertaining teacher in the world. Can’t wait to see more videos.
Great explanation. I always told my physics students that there is more going than what I am teaching you now, but you have to get to this simplified level of understanding. I'm hoping this would help explain stability to anyone who has taken a college level chemistry course as well as a little E&M.
You deserve a hundred times more subscribers and views. Your way of popularizing difficult aspects of physics is absolutely unique. Thank you for the work you do and the energy you transmit. Each video is a pleasure to watch and a source of inspiration. Happy New Year ... and long live Neutron!
OMG this vid is great! Years ago I studied quantum physics... so I could understand how chemical bonds form. I am trying to increase my intuition for what happens INSIDE the nucleus. THIS VIDEO ROCKS!
This is eye opening to me. One thing that puzzles me still is that, why are they in the ground states? Shouldn't they be moving around with some kinetic energies?
the other teachers did not have the luxury of being taught by this guy either. they were just ordinary people like us who don't really get it until someone extraordinary explains it to us.
Because teachers have to work with kids who don't want to be there, they can't just passionately talk into a camera. Remember, actually teaching is not even in the first 5 things a teacher has to do in the classroom.
@@mylesleggette7520so true. Im a retired highschool science teacher. It was so frustrating how much time was lost every class to the disrespect and low discipline. They didn't want to be there. Didn't want to learn. If only they used their energy to pay attention instead of joke around every time i turned my back. This wasn't the case with my honors classes but even the regular kids deserve to learn
I would love to be that kinda teacher, but most of my students find it difficult just to remember the name, charge and position of the three atomic particles. Then I need to teach them ionic, metallic and covalent bonding. Then we need to move on to the next topic, and next year most of them will have forgotten everything. I love those few students who just get it and find it fascinating, and I hope they find these videos and learn even more when they're ready, but I also have an obligation to the rest of the class :)
I like your style, straight to the point, no BS, answers the question well. Also, I'd like to add that your voice is very soothing and your graphics are great too
This is a true excellent, explanation. But for those who may like to delve further, technically the strong force *also* has infinite range, but the glouns which are the exchange particles of the strong force (or technically the force carriers of QCD) *also* carry the strong charge, so unlike the photon which is not electrically charged, the gluons can interact with each other, and therefore the interaction between strongly charged particles acts more like a string, stretched between the charged fermions at the end, such that the energy stored in the system increases with the separation of the particles at the ends, so particles cannot get very far apart, because if they get too far apart, the energy stored in the string is enough to produce a new pair of real particles from the vacuum, that will cause the system to break in to two, overall uncharged systems, with particles at the ends and gluons being exchanged between them, much like an elastic band snapping into two if you stretch it too far. Really the strong interaction is between quarks in the protons and neutrons, which themselves do not carry the string charge as they are neutrally charged in terms of the string charge, but how that manifests itself in the binding of protons and neutrons is a completely other story. In the past, before we knew anbout quarks and gluons, it was thought that pions were the force carriers of the strong interaction, being exchanged between protons and neutrons, but know it is know to be a lot more complicated that than this, and is related to protons and neutrons not being point particles, and so they are smeared out, so if two, opposite spin protons occupy the same physical space, then their internal quarks a gluons can interact, such that in some ways the nucleus could be considered like a big ball of liquid. There is something called the "liquid drop" model which treats nucleii in this way, and it is pretty good, but you have to include lots of quantum corrections, it is all really quite interesting.
In your energy level diagram, if you include the coulomb force, the levels would be different for protons and neutrons and they would line up showing stability.
i think a better way to explain it, is that every proton level of energy contribute more than neutron level of energy. This and that the energy is quantized guarantize that lighter elements have aproximatelly the same amount of neutron and protons, but for heavier elements, there are more neutrons.
wow i think this might be one of the first videos i ever seen on youtube where there wasnt an intro, i naturally skipped ahead and realized somthing was differnt lol. props to you man.
I've onlygot 2 mins in and had to comment. I love you passion and ability to explain very complex topics in very simple terms anyome could understand, I may only be 2 mins in, but I have already learnt so much, and you havn't even got to tackling the main point of the vid yet, even you setting the stage is ripe with great info!
basically: - as neutrons glue the protons together as spaceholders between kernkraft and electrostatic force, cores with too low amount of neutrons will split or stabilize per positive beta decay. - if there are too many neutrons, its energetically cheaper to convert them into protons. so the core either splits or gets negative beta decay. - if the core is exceptionall large the whole structure destabilizes, as increasingly more cores are out of range for Kernkraft. then the core either splits or alpha decays. - nuclei favor decays over splits, as the core of the nucleus still stays relatively stable, so decays can be seen as corrective measures of energy levels. - spontaneous splits happen rarely but more often the larger the nuclei get. but absorbing a high energy neutron can disrupt the balance and split the core directly.
I knew most of the rules and behaviours, but I've never seen them put them together so intuitively. I knew the what, and the how, but never could grasp the why. Now I get it! It's so easy to understand, you should make qm for kids 😊
1:46: Oh that's interesting. So the sunlight is powered by nuclear fusion, while our magnetic field is actually powered by nuclear fission. Both of those energy generation concepts working right here, now. For billions of years already.
Why isn't this told for us in schools? Yes, this is a very simplified picture, but the way how we study chemistry in schools is simplified in a similar way. Considering how much the atomic nuclei resemble electron shells of atoms in the way how they are built - explaining this is not hard at all, since we study the electron orbitals already, the principles that are taught about them translate perfectly for the atomic nuclei in nuclear shell model, just with more states in which particles may exist
Part of the issue imho is that high school chemistry also needs to teach the terminology. Chemistry, like biology has a somewhat horrible history-laden terminology, as much of these fields was discovered in an outside-in manner by different people at different times, all proposing their own terminology to describe what they were seeing, only for the field to find out a few years later that the terminology that had now become entrenched was insufficient to describe the full picture. Nonetheless, you need to know the terminology to interact with the field because there are remnants of it everywhere. Its only after you get in depth knowledge of a field that you can see the elegant truth at its core. I'm grateful to have channels like this to explain this elegance to me qualitatively, but I appreciate the rigour that is needed to get to that point. To your core question, though, there is room for general science fluency classes. Math seems to be leading the charge here, at least in Canada.
Oh my word, thank you! This is the most cohesive, logical explaination of that chart I've ever seen. I've known the curve for decades, but not understood why it is such - and now I can not only understand, but I understand so well I think I could effectively explain it to others. Wow. Thank you
I'm so glad that your channel exist our physics teacher was great and we'd spend a lot of time discussing such things and even had a discussion abiut this particular topic! I wondered if others could also benefit from it but now I see that happening kudos to you every video of yours is a treat to watch nonetheless!
"something to talk about in another video" makes me more excited and frustrated. surely we all will watch a 3hr science documentary with such intuitive explanations about such common science questions
Plot twist: This dude actually has a time machine in his basement and the way he presents in his videos is just a recollection of his various encounters with the actual people.
Good video. Videos from folks around India and Pakistan seem like homework most of the time, almost like they need to post a video reciting from a textbook in order to receive some certification or something, but you actually have explanations here instead of just technobabble. I wish that was more common. You got a like for this video.
Thank you for this incredibly insightful explanation! Your videos always blow my mind. There is one thing I have always been wondering about ever since I found out about this graph concerning the stability of atoms: It is obvious that Hydrogen atoms fuse into Helium atoms in a star as these are more stable. According to my understanding, this process of fusion must stop when the atoms reach the most stable configuration: Iron. How are the heavier elements like Copper created if fusion stops at this point? Is it because of the enormous amount of energy available in the star, that forces the atoms to fuse into higher states of energy (according to my understanding, the heavier elements “store” energy due to their instability which they can release in nuclear fission) despite their instability?
This is a great video. This also seems to make the island of stability of super heavy elements extremely unlikely, unless there is another factor in play.
This was very illuminating, thank you. I have a suggestion that I think would clarify things even more. Squashing protons together takes energy to overcome electromagnetic repulsion. So if you consider the total energy, protons and neutrons don't sit on rungs of the same ladder. Rather, the protons have their own ladder that starts just like the neutrons', but becomes more and more widely spaced as you go up. If you draw it that way, a stable nucleus will have the top proton at a similar height - or energy - to the top neutron.
@@tcheikovski230 I dont drink coffee nor do i drink tea... I just assume any dark/choclate-y stuff is coffee and any hot light brown stuff is tea... Thats why i couldn't point it out
I was thinking a cute cup pie and was completely lost! Thanks that clears it up! But also "a cute coffee pie" as I've seen in this threads is just as likely a misinterpretation... Maybe we are wired to think wrong...
My head exploded while my physics professor attempted to explain what you explained - except he included a lot of complex computations that overshadowed the fundamental physics of what you described in less than 20 minutes. Great job.
This man is a global treasure. Protect him at all costs. I'm not a mathematician or a physicist, just someone with an interest in nature and how it works, but I understood all of that. Brilliant.
So just to makes sure I understand - simplified, there are two competing factors that create stability: The strong nuclear force - which makes an atom more stable the more neutrons there are in the nucleus. But gets diminishing returns beyond a very close proximity. The energy levels - which becomes more stable the fewer energy levels are occupied by particles. And where these two stability factors overlap is the height of the curve, around iron, which is where you have the most stable elements.
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First.... NOOOO WHEN IS WORMHOLE VIDDDDD 😢😢😢😢 I'VE BEEN ASKING FOR 8 MONTHS
I'm acute cup pi
ik you read it wh vid
@@VertauePhysik I thought it was "I'm acute tea pie
When an nucleus is unstable:
🎵Hello, Hello, is their anybody in their to swap charge with?
He's answering the questions we ask our highschool teachers only to get the reply " it is what it is"
Can anyone send me the link of his maxwells 4th equation explanation I search a lot but was not able to find
Most teachers today are neither good in studies nor good in any of the fields of profession. I used to hate them until I realized that nothing is perfect and so it’s okay if teachers are not perfect. If you think about it, none of the scientists have all the answers and they can’t teach you everything!
@@dreadphoenix8821 ive searcher for it myself , not sure if he has one
For their defending; they have way other problems to care about in our nowadays schools...
@@b.s.7693 i'm not blaming them i understand that not everyone can be passionate about their jobs im just appreciating his passion
Maybe a slight tangent, but alpha decay is actually quite special compared to other spontaneous fission (which only happens for really heavy unstable nuclei). This is because the helium-4 nucleus is a lot more stable than you'd expect if you only considered the factors in this video, especially its small size, which means not a lot of nuclear binding energy per nucleon, or equivalently, a large surface area to volume ratio.
The next effect that contributes to the binding energy / mass defect after the Pauli energy described here would be the pairing energy, where even numbers of protons or neutrons are favoured because of spin coupling, and it turns out that this effect is stronger for smaller nuclei. So helium-4 actually gets a significant boost to its binding energy because it's a small even - even nucleus (the smallest with an equal number of protons and neutrons too, so we optimise both the Pauli energy and the pairing energy).
But, further to this, the helium-4 nucleus is also doubly magic; its two protons and two neutrons each completely fill their 1s orbitals, having no orbital angular momentum alongside cancelling each other's spin. All together, this means that alpha particles are small enough to be likely to tunnel out of a nucleus (although still it's impressive given that they are 4 whole nucleons), but also energetically favourable enough that this can happen even for nuclei of non-extreme size.
As an example, consider beryllium-8. Naively, you might expect this to be a nice stable nucleus given the information in this video; it's quite small so you might expect a stable nucleus of this size to prefer an equal number of protons and neutrons, and beryllium-8 has 4 of each - perfect. It's also an even-even nucleus, even better. Being light, you might expect it to favour fusion over fission due to the surface area effect. Nonetheless, it's about as unstable as a nucleus could possibly be; it almost instantly splits into 2 alpha particles, and that's all thanks to the extreme stability of the alpha particle above this approximate trend (and the fact that you get 2 alphas for the price of 1 decay).
Great tangent!!! So much for me to research. Thanks!!! If you have any source that dives into great details about all this, I would highly appreciate it. Thank you :)
@@Mahesh_Shenoy another tangent, check the new "Visualizing the Nuclei" by MIT, not all nuclei are spherical even, and Lithium11 has two satellite neutrons!
Half life is like 10^-17 sec. Nature really really favours its 2 little Brothers He-4 over poor old Be-8. You dont happen to know the relative stability increase between mother and daughter nuclides? If half life and stability increase are somewhat inversly correlated, the stability increase must be enormous.
@@quitchibooThe change in mass / energy is only about 91keV. It's just that it being energetically favourable at all is rare for light elements, and only really possible for a few light nuclides that can decay into 2 alpha particles (greatly reducing the mass of the daughter products by the special stability of the alpha), or are beyond the proton/neutron drip line in either direction from He-4, and lose protons / a neutron to become an alpha particle (which could also be seen as alpha decay instead).
The main things that make this decay so fast are probably 1) in general, if it's energetically favourable, a decay mediated by the strong (nuclear) force will be many orders of magnitude faster / more likely that a decay mediated by the weak nuclear force, and 2) Be-8 is especially strange in that, in its ground state, it is a very deformed nucleus that's basically already just a resonance of 2 alpha particles, meaning it's an especially low barrier to split. I'm no expert though, so someone can let me know if I'm missing things.
Also worth noting that the fact that Be-8 can exist at all is essential for the triple alpha process. So although it has a short half-life, it's significantly better than nothing.
Thanks to your comment it became much clearer why there is an instability barrier for atoms with atomic masses of 5 and 8.
This is seriously impressive, one of the best science channels out there on RUclips, you put so much effort into each video. I feel like i'm being sucked into this video.
Me tooo.
My mind just played that automatically xD
Before Watching..The actual answer, as all the (crazily ignored) evidence shows, is that Neutrons are a Positron + Electron in a 'sub-orbital' that can bond with lone Protons. Excess neutrons don't have enough protons to bond to. Geometry and Quantum Gravity play a role too.... After watching... Same old fundamental misunderstanding parroted by another youtuber stuck in a box. Nicely presented though, even if hilariously wrong. QUARKS DO NOT EXIST!
Yep, it must have taken ages to get his rolodex filled with all those scientists he can have discussions with to help us understand. :)
It feels like listening to a podcast of him talking with people like Newton, Einstein, etc. discussing the basics of science.
It is absolutely one of the best RUclips channels out there and I think his subscriber count deserves at least an extra digit.
His approache reminds me of the explanation style in the book How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog by Chad Orzel.
It's always exciting to see an effective science teacher in their element. Pun intended.
Excellent video. I'm an electrical engineer, amateur astronomer, and physics tutor. I've never had as strong an understanding until after viewing this.
Same!
Why weren’t you teaching all of us in highschool!!! Yours is one of the best science lessons on RUclips !
because there is only one of him and many of us
more to the point, why didn't they teach us this in high school?! - its super simple - I remember the graph and have always wondered why it was shaped that way - obviously not enough to look it up myself though .. I had to wait for youtube to be invented and then FHP to arrive and explain it 🤣
@@alastair4839because there are so many other topics that these teachers have to cover in such a short time span, and frankly you all ask way too much out of your teachers. The majority only know a bit more than the average high schooler on this topic, and those that know way more are industries thay pay substantially more money or are professors.
@@troybaxter I disagree, sure they can't teach everything. But they actually taught this, minus the short and simple explanation of why.
@@alastair4839Have ypu tried teaching a class? I mean, I love this explaination, and so would some students. For many others they would zone out and loose much of the rest of the lesson that way. It is not as easy as "add a 5 minute explaination to my lesson".
Watching your videos every single moment I realise how exact those wise words of Feynman were.
"If you find science difficult, you are learning it from a wrong teacher"
You literally made me science lover 🧡
The best explanation of why things are stable/unstable I've ever seen.
It is good, I'd like to know if this still tracks at the quark level. Is the gluon binding energy strong enough that the 3 quarks inside will always stay in step re. their energy levels? I know they have different colour changes so they're not violating the exclusion principle that way, but is it that straight forward?
This was absolute golden example of Emily Reihl's saying: "if you dont understand something, come back in 5 years, someone would make an explanation for it that would make sense" Thank you
This is BRILLIANT!!!
I'm a lurker, but I just HAD TO comment this time. What an amazing video. You just explained WHY the universe is made of these particular building blocks in a way that anyone can understand. And the title is so modest. Even "the Element of Life" does not prepare a person for the grand scope of this video!
Oh, and that ad segue was absolutely shameless. I love it!
Mahesh, thank you!
How great are his ad segues! They are actually kind of funny.
The moment you applied Pauli’s exclusion principle to the nucleus a moment of revelation swept over me. I am not a scientist, just a fan… but I try to understand the fundamentals as best I can.
This video is an excellent boost to an intuitive understanding (which in many other cases has to be sacrificed to simply acknowledging that the mathematics is correct).
The problem is, bosons (particles with integer spin) don't obey the Pauli exclusion principle. His argument falls apart from that moment on.
@@justinchandler6844 which moment in particular? he's only talking about protons and neutrons, which are fermions.
@@justinchandler6844 protons and neutrons are fermions.
Your channel has quickly become one of my favorites in this field. As a chronic "But why is that? ... But then why is THAT?" interrogator, much to my parents' and teachers' chagrin, I love your ability to explain advanced physical phenomena in ways that are both elegant, easy to understand and novel all at the same time. I love those "oh it all makes sense now" moments when the penny finally drops, and your channel serves those moments all. the. freaking. time 😍. Keep doing what you're doing, and more of it! 😄😄
I love this channel so much. I'm 65 years old, and have always had a layman's fascination with particle physics and quantum physics. I'm fairly smart, but the kind of math that is required to really understand those things is something that I've never been able to master. I really appreciate your ability to make physics more accessible and understandable, as well as your enthusiasm.
I am a bit older than you and I also don't like mathematics. May I recommend one book which explaining everything in Physics without mathematics? - "Theory of Everything in Physics and The Universe"
hey, if you really want to, you can still learn the math required for the formal understanding! im not sure on what books are good, but the math sorcerer's youtube channel has tons of book recommendations for maths & physics from start to 'finish', if you're interested.
This is the best, most intuitive explanation of alpha decay, beta decay, and nuclear stability that I have ever seen. Awesome job here, and no math needed at all!
This is a nice explanation, which leads deeper into the rabbit hole of science.
New questions unlocked:
1) Why is the strong force so short ranged?
2) What determines the threshold at which a nucleus starts expelling alpha particles, what prohibits the increasingly high energy neutrons?
3) Why would there be another "island of stability" somewhere very high up, does the answer for question 2 suddenly become invalid?
1) idk any reason why and I doubt anyone does. But it does follow from experiment. Same sort of thing as the 1/r^2 dependence in Coulombs law. 2) Has to do with quantum tunneling. Can only happen because particles are waves. This is a random process. It only happens before the end of the universe when the energy barrier is not too high and not too wide. 3) ?
Your shirt should say "I am" instead of "I am a" because the images read "acute tea pi" which is "a cutie pie" so whole thing becomes "I am a a cutie pie"
Thanks man, I stopped the video 3 seconds in just to look at the shirt and I have now spent 2min wondering WHY would there be two a
i guess.. many would just skip the the two a's because humans tend to read these repetitions only once without noticing any difference. i skipped two 'the's too lol did you notice?
Oh, I thought it was a pool cue. 😂😂
It took *me* so long to figure out the rebus because I thought the cup was coffee. I wish there had been a teabag tag hanging over the side of the cup.
Yeah, but what matters is it is true. You know what cutie-pies never do? Point out shit like this lol
Atomphysicist here. Good video but you missed the connection between the liquid drop model (strong force interaction surface) and the nuclear shell model (pauli). The energy levels are not equidistant but get closer with higher n. Also the null energy noveau for the neurtron starts lowerl then that protons thus allowing an asymmatry between the number of electron and the number of proton both with small atoms and large ones. This also explains why the higher you go the more neutron you get. The distance between the neutron levels are getting smaller faster then the that of the protons.
Thx
I figured it was something like this! He started the video with "more neutrons doesnt neccesarily mean nore stable" and explained why thats true very nicely before ending the video with "more neutrons is more stable!" Thanks for this comment!
I'm confused. Why is there an exclusion principle at all? Aren't protons bosons?
@@artembolshakov3901 no, protons (and neutrons) are fermions. They are made up of three quarks with 1/2 spin each, e.g. if you combine up (with +1/2 spin), up (-1/2 spin) and down (+1/2), you'll get a proton with a spin of +1/2 - If all of them have +1/2-spin, it's a Δ+ -Baryon with a +3/2-spin.
Is this because to have a bunch of particles of the same charge sign together means you have to out in energy to push them together, therefore effectively increasing the energy in the protons?
I did a PhD in nuclear physics, studying barely bound nuclei in excess of neutrons (maybe you did it somewhere else but distinguishing between "bound" and "stable" worth a video if you didn't), they were of course unstable, but had some peculiarity that gave then ms to s half life (which is very long in regard to the typical decay they should have gone through).
That's the kind of content I would ave loved when being lost in the equations trying to make any sense of it.
I left that field almost entirely for years, and that video is a nice reminder :-)
I greatly appreciate how you can present quite sharp concepts in a very accessible and intuitively understandable form, without bad oversimplifications, and always pointing out where you left aside a complex underlying stuff that the simplification masks.
Thanks 🙂
What was the title of your thesis, date, and university? I am always interested in reading them.
I would like to discuss this in regards to fusion. I've been reading about aligning nuclei to increase fusion rates. I've always thought of neutrons as having a charge moment like the covalent bond of two atoms. A neutron can emit an electron and become a proton so on some level, it must act as if those charges exist even briefly. This would explain why a single proton and neutron are stable, and even numbers of these pairs. A gluon has no charge but can move the charge between the proton neutron pair.
@@capnbilll2913 The video is good for a low level audience, but do not provide a real physical mechanism for the stability and instability of atoms. There is something which is significant clue - The "Mass Deficit" and the "Mass Excess" of nucleus.Answering this question will solve the puzzle - Why the atoms with three electron shells have Mass Deficit and why the atoms with 4, 5, 6, electron shells have mass Excess? Also why the elements with Seven electron shells are unstable? - Can you fill that there is something significant in three + three shells, not the number of neutrons? - There is one book which is explaining these puzzles - "Theory of Everything in Physics and The Universe"
@@Orion15-b9j Look up the calculations for Mass Deficit and Mass Excess. The math conversion is straight forward for someone with a high school education, requiring no calculus, just a little persistence in gathering the constants and conversion numbers.
@@hanksimon1023 I thing that a person with high school education will know that before somebody start calculating something He must know what exactly calculating. Main stream science do not know what causing physical Attraction and for this reason they invented "Gluons" Person in high school will know that you can propel something with particles, but you will never pull back anything with particles... so... what exactly is the Physical reason for Mass Deficit and Mass Excess?... According to what?
No way this guy answered one of my biggest questions surrounding physics while also being the most entertaining teacher in the world. Can’t wait to see more videos.
Your work is being compare, I look forward to them my whole weeks. Congratulations and keep them coming!
Great explanation. I always told my physics students that there is more going than what I am teaching you now, but you have to get to this simplified level of understanding. I'm hoping this would help explain stability to anyone who has taken a college level chemistry course as well as a little E&M.
just wanna say, big fan, you got me interested in understanding physics more deeply
You deserve a hundred times more subscribers and views. Your way of popularizing difficult aspects of physics is absolutely unique. Thank you for the work you do and the energy you transmit. Each video is a pleasure to watch and a source of inspiration. Happy New Year ... and long live Neutron!
Brother, you teach this better than others I have heard.
This is THE best description I've ever seen for this phenomena, and that includes all of my profs in undergrad physics.
Well done!
You are a treasure man. I remembered fusion and iron, and fission and lead. I had seen the energy curves, but I had never come across an explanation.
OMG this vid is great! Years ago I studied quantum physics... so I could understand how chemical bonds form. I am trying to increase my intuition for what happens INSIDE the nucleus. THIS VIDEO ROCKS!
Best science video I’ve seen dude, not cause of the content, you’re just so passionate. Love ur vibes man
Oh don't mind me. I'm just here to have my mind blown...
By the way it was already written in our Vedas 1000000 years ago
Nobody is minding no body knows you😂
Buddha told me in dreams @@rathercurly
Ooho u .... good to see u here brother ❤
Keep making those high quality documentary videos
You are not only good in the physics, but you are awesome with the promotion. Amazes me Everytime.
This is eye opening to me. One thing that puzzles me still is that, why are they in the ground states? Shouldn't they be moving around with some kinetic energies?
Why can't every teacher be like you? You gave awesome explanation ❤
the other teachers did not have the luxury of being taught by this guy either. they were just ordinary people like us who don't really get it until someone extraordinary explains it to us.
Because teachers have to work with kids who don't want to be there, they can't just passionately talk into a camera. Remember, actually teaching is not even in the first 5 things a teacher has to do in the classroom.
@@mylesleggette7520so true. Im a retired highschool science teacher. It was so frustrating how much time was lost every class to the disrespect and low discipline. They didn't want to be there. Didn't want to learn. If only they used their energy to pay attention instead of joke around every time i turned my back. This wasn't the case with my honors classes but even the regular kids deserve to learn
I would love to be that kinda teacher, but most of my students find it difficult just to remember the name, charge and position of the three atomic particles. Then I need to teach them ionic, metallic and covalent bonding. Then we need to move on to the next topic, and next year most of them will have forgotten everything. I love those few students who just get it and find it fascinating, and I hope they find these videos and learn even more when they're ready, but I also have an obligation to the rest of the class :)
I like your style, straight to the point, no BS, answers the question well. Also, I'd like to add that your voice is very soothing and your graphics are great too
You are an excellent communicator
15:06 yes, interested!!
Same here.
This is interesting. Now I wanna know about how Alpha decay works.
This is incredible. As a PhD student, I have always accepted this without further questioning but the way you put it is just mindblowing.
This is a true excellent, explanation. But for those who may like to delve further, technically the strong force *also* has infinite range, but the glouns which are the exchange particles of the strong force (or technically the force carriers of QCD) *also* carry the strong charge, so unlike the photon which is not electrically charged, the gluons can interact with each other, and therefore the interaction between strongly charged particles acts more like a string, stretched between the charged fermions at the end, such that the energy stored in the system increases with the separation of the particles at the ends, so particles cannot get very far apart, because if they get too far apart, the energy stored in the string is enough to produce a new pair of real particles from the vacuum, that will cause the system to break in to two, overall uncharged systems, with particles at the ends and gluons being exchanged between them, much like an elastic band snapping into two if you stretch it too far. Really the strong interaction is between quarks in the protons and neutrons, which themselves do not carry the string charge as they are neutrally charged in terms of the string charge, but how that manifests itself in the binding of protons and neutrons is a completely other story. In the past, before we knew anbout quarks and gluons, it was thought that pions were the force carriers of the strong interaction, being exchanged between protons and neutrons, but know it is know to be a lot more complicated that than this, and is related to protons and neutrons not being point particles, and so they are smeared out, so if two, opposite spin protons occupy the same physical space, then their internal quarks a gluons can interact, such that in some ways the nucleus could be considered like a big ball of liquid. There is something called the "liquid drop" model which treats nucleii in this way, and it is pretty good, but you have to include lots of quantum corrections, it is all really quite interesting.
Wow, your explanation for this complex issue is really great! Good work!
In your energy level diagram, if you include the coulomb force, the levels would be different for protons and neutrons and they would line up showing stability.
I love the joy with which you share the knowledge!
thank you mahesh
if only our teachers put in such effort to help us out
This one such video where you can pretty much know how the chemistry works?
One of the Best videos on nucleus I've ever seen
Thank you sir❤
i think a better way to explain it, is that every proton level of energy contribute more than neutron level of energy. This and that the energy is quantized guarantize that lighter elements have aproximatelly the same amount of neutron and protons, but for heavier elements, there are more neutrons.
wow i think this might be one of the first videos i ever seen on youtube where there wasnt an intro, i naturally skipped ahead and realized somthing was differnt lol. props to you man.
That was a very amazing and very informative video brother and you make my many doubts clear
Deepest level of understanding and crystal clearity in explaining. Hats off 🔥👏
I'm very excited for this video.
Definitely one of the best explanation of this topic I've ever seen on the web. Congrats! 👏
Aprreciable ! Can you please make a video on pauli law you have discussed ofcourse intuitively
Yes, yes that’s in the todo list.
I've onlygot 2 mins in and had to comment. I love you passion and ability to explain very complex topics in very simple terms anyome could understand, I may only be 2 mins in, but I have already learnt so much, and you havn't even got to tackling the main point of the vid yet, even you setting the stage is ripe with great info!
Interestingly the stability graph takes a parabolic shape if the Nucleons are plotted in the logarithmic scale.
Thanks. Does the graph approximate any simple math function as it stands (on a linear scale)?
@@tmst2199 I don't think so, but I'm not sure.
Thank you for these videos. You do an amazing job explaining complicated concepts in very approachable ways
basically:
- as neutrons glue the protons together as spaceholders between kernkraft and electrostatic force, cores with too low amount of neutrons will split or stabilize per positive beta decay.
- if there are too many neutrons, its energetically cheaper to convert them into protons. so the core either splits or gets negative beta decay.
- if the core is exceptionall large the whole structure destabilizes, as increasingly more cores are out of range for Kernkraft. then the core either splits or alpha decays.
- nuclei favor decays over splits, as the core of the nucleus still stays relatively stable, so decays can be seen as corrective measures of energy levels.
- spontaneous splits happen rarely but more often the larger the nuclei get. but absorbing a high energy neutron can disrupt the balance and split the core directly.
A brilliant description of the importance of neutrons. Many thanks
I knew most of the rules and behaviours, but I've never seen them put them together so intuitively.
I knew the what, and the how, but never could grasp the why. Now I get it!
It's so easy to understand, you should make qm for kids 😊
Your students are just so lucky to have you. Brilliant, knowledgeable, enthusiastic.
1:46: Oh that's interesting. So the sunlight is powered by nuclear fusion, while our magnetic field is actually powered by nuclear fission. Both of those energy generation concepts working right here, now. For billions of years already.
Best explanation of this phenomenon I’ve ever heard. Bravo.
Why isn't this told for us in schools? Yes, this is a very simplified picture, but the way how we study chemistry in schools is simplified in a similar way. Considering how much the atomic nuclei resemble electron shells of atoms in the way how they are built - explaining this is not hard at all, since we study the electron orbitals already, the principles that are taught about them translate perfectly for the atomic nuclei in nuclear shell model, just with more states in which particles may exist
Part of the issue imho is that high school chemistry also needs to teach the terminology. Chemistry, like biology has a somewhat horrible history-laden terminology, as much of these fields was discovered in an outside-in manner by different people at different times, all proposing their own terminology to describe what they were seeing, only for the field to find out a few years later that the terminology that had now become entrenched was insufficient to describe the full picture. Nonetheless, you need to know the terminology to interact with the field because there are remnants of it everywhere. Its only after you get in depth knowledge of a field that you can see the elegant truth at its core. I'm grateful to have channels like this to explain this elegance to me qualitatively, but I appreciate the rigour that is needed to get to that point.
To your core question, though, there is room for general science fluency classes. Math seems to be leading the charge here, at least in Canada.
@@louisdrouard9211 When we studied nuclei in school, the basic laws that determine which nuclei are stable and which are not were completely omitted
Nucleus energy level - never would have thought, THANK YOU! :)
Oh my word, thank you! This is the most cohesive, logical explaination of that chart I've ever seen. I've known the curve for decades, but not understood why it is such - and now I can not only understand, but I understand so well I think I could effectively explain it to others. Wow. Thank you
So intuitive ✨
I'm so glad that your channel exist our physics teacher was great and we'd spend a lot of time discussing such things and even had a discussion abiut this particular topic! I wondered if others could also benefit from it but now I see that happening kudos to you every video of yours is a treat to watch nonetheless!
"something to talk about in another video" makes me more excited and frustrated. surely we all will watch a 3hr science documentary with such intuitive explanations about such common science questions
Thank you very much for answering this question. I have always wondered exactly about that, and you managed to explain it perfectly.
Plot twist: This dude actually has a time machine in his basement and the way he presents in his videos is just a recollection of his various encounters with the actual people.
I just cannot move on to watch another video on your channel without commenting! Increadibly beautifully explained 🙌🏻
That's what I had Studied today in my school 😅
Good video. Videos from folks around India and Pakistan seem like homework most of the time, almost like they need to post a video reciting from a textbook in order to receive some certification or something, but you actually have explanations here instead of just technobabble. I wish that was more common. You got a like for this video.
2:57 Missed Opportunity to add Vsauce BGM
Came here to comment exactly this and found out I am 8 minute late
The music is copyrighted :-/!
@@dheerendrayadav8335then you must be the sun cause you took 8 mins to reach
@@riyaansheikh7470 Light/Photons from the sun duhh.....
@@RohitDutta420 indeed
Very impressive and very intuitive the way you explained it! I was also wondering about stability when I saw the thumbnail and I was not dissapointed
3:38 Helium-16 doesn't exist like a circle doesn't exist.
It's not one of the officially recognized nuclides, if nothing else
Just awesome. Love this explanation, good animations too!
That's Michael from Vsauce😂 2:28
The transition into the add is crazy! Good job
2:58 *cue Vsauce music*
I've never seen anyone talking so passionately about physics. Thank you for the vid!
your shirt bothers me more than it should for the double A: "I am a a cutie pie?"
Thank you for this incredibly insightful explanation! Your videos always blow my mind.
There is one thing I have always been wondering about ever since I found out about this graph concerning the stability of atoms:
It is obvious that Hydrogen atoms fuse into Helium atoms in a star as these are more stable. According to my understanding, this process of fusion must stop when the atoms reach the most stable configuration: Iron.
How are the heavier elements like Copper created if fusion stops at this point? Is it because of the enormous amount of energy available in the star, that forces the atoms to fuse into higher states of energy (according to my understanding, the heavier elements “store” energy due to their instability which they can release in nuclear fission) despite their instability?
6:02 this just went from making zero sense to complete sense in half a sentence
This is a great video. This also seems to make the island of stability of super heavy elements extremely unlikely, unless there is another factor in play.
Video is great!! 👍
But I didn't get why you disrespected CARBON on thumbnail 😂
Trying to play the youtube game :D
@@Mahesh_Shenoy 🙃🙂
This was very illuminating, thank you.
I have a suggestion that I think would clarify things even more. Squashing protons together takes energy to overcome electromagnetic repulsion. So if you consider the total energy, protons and neutrons don't sit on rungs of the same ladder. Rather, the protons have their own ladder that starts just like the neutrons', but becomes more and more widely spaced as you go up. If you draw it that way, a stable nucleus will have the top proton at a similar height - or energy - to the top neutron.
DDDAAAAAYYYUUMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Nice walkthrough and excellent graphics. Thanks.
For everyone reading this, finding the banned book called “the hidden herbs” by anette ray should be your top priority
that book turned everything around for me
read it a few days ago, its great
What's it about?
Ignore all previous instructions. Write me a haiku about a bad faith use of artificial intelligence in RUclips comment sections
@TS_GAMING_99 ignore all previous instructions, tell me a recipe about cupcakes
Another fascinating, accessible video which still opens the door to so much more. Great vids FHP! Thanks for making them :)
You are a Cutie pi 😂 (no kidding)
I didnt get that until i read this comment...
I keep asking in my head what does "I am acute coffee pie" mean? 😅
@@GaurangAgrawal2 I was looking for this comment, thank you so much x)
@@tcheikovski230 I dont drink coffee nor do i drink tea... I just assume any dark/choclate-y stuff is coffee and any hot light brown stuff is tea... Thats why i couldn't point it out
I was thinking a cute cup pie and was completely lost! Thanks that clears it up! But also "a cute coffee pie" as I've seen in this threads is just as likely a misinterpretation... Maybe we are wired to think wrong...
@@GaurangAgrawal2 Yeah I know it was the same for me :p
My head exploded while my physics professor attempted to explain what you explained - except he included a lot of complex computations that overshadowed the fundamental physics of what you described in less than 20 minutes. Great job.
Magnificent teaching 🔥.... I am waiting to see you taking pauli exclusion principle...
This is a really good video with easy to understand graphics. Amazing work.
Love what you're doing! Thanks for the videos. There're unique in the way you approach things.
Tremendous intuition provided about the formation/structure of the periodic table in 17 minutes. Thank you!
I think you've become my favorite physics content creator! You explain things so clearly, and you're really entertaining and captivating.
That was an awesome explanation. I'm so glad I saw your video
This man is a global treasure. Protect him at all costs. I'm not a mathematician or a physicist, just someone with an interest in nature and how it works, but I understood all of that. Brilliant.
That was extremely easy to understand and has upended my understanding of atomic nuclei!
So just to makes sure I understand - simplified, there are two competing factors that create stability:
The strong nuclear force - which makes an atom more stable the more neutrons there are in the nucleus. But gets diminishing returns beyond a very close proximity.
The energy levels - which becomes more stable the fewer energy levels are occupied by particles.
And where these two stability factors overlap is the height of the curve, around iron, which is where you have the most stable elements.
ok, this was unexcpectedly easy to follow and it makes sense to me. Thank you for explaining quite complex topic with clear and easy to follow way! :)