Atoms consist of protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons are positively charged particles. Neutrons do not have a charge. Protons and neutrons stay together in the center of the atom, which is called the nucleus. Electrons are negatively charged and float around the nucleus. But if opposites attract, then why are protons and neutrons the ones that are together in the nucleus of an atom? Shouldn’t protons and electrons be the ones that are together?
Nature has four fundamental forces: Gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force and the strong force. Gravity is the attraction between two objects that have mass. This means every single object in the universe attracts another object. The reason we cannot feel every single object’s force is due to mass and distance. Either we do not have enough mass to exert a force on each other or we’re too far apart from each other, or both. But it doesn’t matter how far you are from something, the gravitational pull that it has on you never drops to zero.
Electromagnetism is the force that acts between charged particles such as electrons and protons. Like gravity, the electromagnetism force between two objects will never be zero. Electromagnetism is made up of two forces that were thought to be separate but are actually two components of the same force: Electric force and the magnetic force. As electrons travel through a wire, there is an electric force, and the wire becomes magnetic. The electromagnetic force creates phenomena such as friction and elasticity.
The weak force is responsible for particle decay, which is when one subatomic particle becomes another type of subatomic particle. This type of force is needed for powering the sun which then gives organisms on Earth the energy they need to live. Particle decay also helps scientists figure out how old organisms are.
The strong force is the strongest of the four forces (stronger than gravity by a factor of six followed with 39 zeros). Like the weak force, it only binds particles of matter. The strange thing about the strong force is that the closer the particles get to each other, the weaker the force becomes. This is the force responsible for neutrons and protons sticking together. The strong force is so strong that even though the protons in the nucleus repel each other, it causes them to stick together.
Protons and electrons stick together as much as they can, but electrons have too much kinetic energy (they move too fast) to ever actually stick to protons. They are also very tiny compared to protons.
Hydrogen is made up of one proton, and oxygen is made up of 16 protons. Water is made up of two hydrogens and one oxygen. The electrons surrounding the elements that make up water tend to go towards oxygen. When there is an unequal balance of the number of electrons each element has, we call the molecule polar. Polar molecules will dissolve easily in water because “like” dissolves “like.” For example, salt (made up of sodium which has 11 protons and chlorine, which has 17 protons) and sugar (made up of carbon, which has six protons, hydrogen and oxygen) dissolve in water because, like water, they are polar.
If hydrogen encounters either oxygen, nitrogen (seven protons), or fluorine (nine protons), it will form a strong bond called a hydrogen-bond. Water is made up of a ton of hydrogen-oxygen-hydrogen molecules. So the hydrogens encounter the oxygens in other hydrogen-oxygen-hydrogen molecules, forming strong hydrogen-bonds.
Oil is nonpolar, which means when oil and water are mixed, oil does not dissolve in water. Hydrogen-bonds in water are stronger than anything that could attract water with oil.
An emulsifier is a molecule that has a polar and a non-polar end, which is something that can be used to attract water and oil. Soap is an emulsifier: It attracts the oil on your hands to the water and washes off with the water.
Vaageesha Das is a junior at Morgantown High School.
Today’s information comes from:
- Laufer, Rene. How Far Would You Have to Go to Escape Gravity? YouTube, Ted-Ed, 6 Nov. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlxKh4oCKhw&t=72s;
- Rehm, J. (2019, October 01). The Four Fundamental Forces of Nature. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://www.space.com/four-fundamental-forces.html;
- Why Don’t Oil and Water Mix? (n.d.). Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-dont-oil-and-water-mix;
- Wolff, A. (2013, February 27). Why doesn’t oil mix with water? Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-oil-mix-with-water.
