Библия Времени. Найди свое. Лим Ворд
the development of yet another, very important source of energy matures, promising not so much convenience as a hidden threat – … atomic.
In 1897, the English scientist Joseph Thomson explored the so-called. the anodic rays (those, incidentally, which cause the glow of white light lamps), opens the electron and, at the same time, is selected to the idea of the dependence of energy on mass. This idea is picked up by a compatriot, Oliver Heaviside. A self-taught scientist derives the most famous formula: «E = mc2».
The energy of the body (material object) is equal to its mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light? Energy… that is, the ability of the body to perform work is equal to the mass and speed of electromagnetic waves? Is the horse equal to the elephant multiplied by the square of the pigeon? This can come up only by the English, natural eccentrics.
However, the formula becomes popular, in the works of the Dutchman Hendrik Lorentz acquires a mathematical justification; until, finally, it does not pay attention to the German (then Swiss) subject Albert Einstein. It is quite suitable for the Special Relativity Theory (SRT) he created. In 1905, the journal «Annals of Physics» publishes the work of the little-known clerk of the Patent Bureau «Towards Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies». And, one way or another, rather soon this relationship is called «Einstein’s equation.»
The theory of relativity is designed to solve two essential questions. The first is the observability of the speed of light (C), which is observed experimentally, including by an absolutely unarmed eye. The second – Maxwell’s formulas do not assume the relative motion of the source and receiver of electromagnetic waves. Otherwise, these «divine» relationships are incredibly distorted and lose all meaning.
In the universe is full of rapidly moving objects, this state of things does not fit into Maxwell’s equations, what can we do? SRT solves this problem, using such new concepts as «curvature of space», «changing the course of time» and also, «distortion of the dimensions of moving bodies.» Material objects have nonzero velocity, and at the same time seem to stand still (make negligibly slow mutual movements). Thus, the light flying relative to our Earth, as well as the stars revolving around its axis, can not be accelerated or slowed by the movement of this source. Otherwise, we would see at night in the sky not a scattering of luminous points, but blurred lines.
SRT decides and another important issue. What happens to a quantum, otherwise a photon, a particle of light emitted towards the observer by a source moving from the latter with a velocity practically equal to C? Not knowing about SRT, we could assume that the light freezes in space, it becomes some kind of corpuscle-like ordinary atom – which can be considered an electron microscope, maybe using certain special molecules in the construction, and so on. The theory of relativity shows; The photon remains a photon flying with C, although it has changed the length of its wave. So, in general, everything happens in reality. It is worth adding; in modern concepts the quantum of visible light is something like a disturbing thread, a length of three meters, which is invariably in motion. When absorbed, the photon turns into a tiny «ball». Light, that is, a quantum has no rest mass, but, nevertheless, it obeys the forces of gravity. When absorbing, in other words, stopping, this particle, like all the others, adds to its receiver «gravity».
…With the advent, at the beginning of the 20th century, of quantum mechanics, the visibility of physical processes goes far to the second, third, maybe even no plan. In the first place in physics – a powerful, closed to all uninitiated mathematical apparatus, indeed, capable of describing some processes – but nothing and they do not explain. One of the results of this status quo is the modern theory of the structure of matter. The simplest atom is a hydrogen atom, it consists of a proton, a «neutron» adhering to it and circling around this structure, an electron. Actually, such an intuitive model, representing the electron as a planet, whose coordinates are amenable to computation, although present in textbooks, is inferior gradually to formulas that represent particles by some «wave function». Precise measurements, determination of the «appearance» of the atomic structure, coordinates and speed are impossible in principle. There are only the probability of the appearance of something. We quote the catechism of physicists of the school of the «Copenhagen interpretation» of quantum mechanics: «… the probability of finding a particle at a given point of the configuration space at a given time is considered equal to the square of the absolute value of the wave function of this state in the coordinate representation.»
The proton, neutron and other subquantum particles consist of quarks. In its time, the theory of quarks was created by the Americans M. Gell-Mann and (independently, in the same year, 1964) by J. Zweig specifically to reduce the entire diversity of microparticles to one single kind of primordial, structureless «building blocks» of matter. It’s a good thing. But very soon it is found out that there are six kinds of quarks (or, in other words, «fragrances») – the so-called. lower, upper, strange, enchanted, charming, true. They have an electrical charge – a third of the electronic, or a multiple of it. There is a color charge – «red», «green» and «blue». For example, a proton consists of three quarks, two of which are the same. To overcome some specific repulsion (according to the Pauli principle, two identical objects can not coexist with each other), the quarks have necessarily different colors. Together they form a «white» particle.
There are also three «anti-colors» and «generations» of quarks.
Quarks are connected by exchanging one more type of particles – gluons, carriers, among other things, a color charge. There are six or eight species.
In the company of quarks, lawfully, there are leptons proposed by L. Rosenfeld in 1948. To these fundamental particles, in particular, belong some types of (almost imperceptible) neutrinos. Ironically, the «bricks» of matter, for example, tau lepton, can «weigh» twice as much complex compound proton.
According to quantum field theory, the mathematical apparatus of which simply can not be understood by an ordinary person, any interaction – electromagnetic, strong (between quarks, also neutrons and protons in the nucleus of the atom), weak, responsible for certain types of decay of atomic nuclei – is also carried out by particles; the latter may have energy, i.e., a mass that is much greater than the mass of the gluing objects. Another type of fundamental interaction, the fifth, which appeared relatively recently, with the launch of the LHC – the Large Hadron Collider – is the so-called Higgs field. The transponder of the interaction in it is the Higgs boson (Higgson, named theoretician, Peter Higgs) was discovered on July 4, 2012 in the already mentioned LHC. It has an energy of 125 gigaelectronvolts, which, we note, is about 130 times higher than the mass of the proton. This Higgson is formed at the confluence of two gluons. Interacting with this boson, all the elementary particles, in some special way, acquire their inert mass.
In quantum mechanics gravity is not squeezed. Actually, A. Einstein has already thoroughly worked here, and his numerous followers. SRT and GRT (General Theory of Gravitation) have their own grandiose mathematical forest. Roughly speaking, Einstein’s cause of interaction is a curved space, and in quantum mechanics – certain microparticles. In order to bring together the two theories, it is necessary (probably the word «probably») to quantize the space, to represent it, perhaps, by some miniature glomeruli. At distances comparable with the diameter of the atomic nucleus, the particles-carriers of interactions are quite imaginable. But how can we imagine the connection of planets, stars, galaxies with microscopic particles in the vast spaces of the Cosmos?
It seems to the uninitiated that some theoreticians just knock out money from the people to provide for themselves and their families, create conditions for dust-free honorary work – the results of which are still not understood by anyone. But, in any case, it is clear that there are also practices.
…In 1986, the French physicist Henri Becquerel discovers that the uranium salts are exposed to a photographic plate wrapped in opaque material. It turns out; some atoms do not have a completely perfect design. They can explode – themselves,