The Science Blog Of Nick

Fact of the month: 99.9999999999999% of a hydrogen atom is nothing. This means that everything around you is mostly nothing. The chair you are sitting on, the device you are reading this post on. It is mostly nothing. A reasonable size proportion for this is that if an atom was the size of our planet, the nucleus has a diameter of Manhattan. This is the fact of the month because I think that this fact is mind blowing (not literally). (above) A hydrogen atom.

Fact of the week: -273.15ºC - The coldest temperature possible. 0K, or -273ºC is the coldest temperature that is physically possible. The temperature at which, theoretically, every substance is solid, the substance will have no energy. This temperature in known as absolute zero. (above) The Celsius to Kelvin scale.

Fact of the day: Only 4% of the universe is matter, 23% is dark matter, 73% is dark energy. Dark matter in one of the mysteries of astrophysics and cosmology. It is very elusive stuff (I am calling it 'stuff'' because it is not technically matter) that very rarely interacts with matter, and does not emit any radiation. We only know it exists because of its gravitational effect on matter. It was noticed when Lord Kelvin was measuring the mass of galaxies and suggested that the majority of stars may be dark bodies. The existence of dark matter being a totally different type of matter was proposed in 1932 by Jan Oort. These scientists found that the visible mass of galaxies would not hold onto the stars on the outer edges of the galaxies as the stars velocities would be to fast, unless there was more 'undetectable' mass in the galaxies providing a gravitational pull. Scientists are attempting to detect dark matter in underground research facilities, so the solar ...

Fact of the day: The Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. There are two types of particles, bosons and fermions. Fermions (quarks and leptons) are what makes up matter, and the 'substance' of the universe. Bosons are the force carrying particles of the universe. There are five elementary bosons in the standard model of elementary particles, the photon, the gluon, the w bosons, the z boson, and the Higgs boson. I have briefly discussed the first four bosons on that list, as they carry the fundamental forces, and is one of my previous topics. According to Bose-Einstein statistics, any particle that has integer spin is a boson (e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc...). This means that, technically, any particle that is made up of an even number of fermions is a boson, because fermions have half integer spin (e.g. 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, etc...). A helium-4 nucleus (the most common type of helium) is technically a boson, as it contains four hadrons, or two protons and two neutrons, or 6 up quarks and 6 down...

Fact of the day: A neutrino (a type of lepton) particle can pass through our planet and not come in contact with anything. Leptons are the other type of fermions (quarks and leptons) that make up the left side of the standard model of elementary particles. They are considered to be fundamental particles. The study of leptons is known as quantum flavourdynamics, because different types of leptons are referred to as different flavours of leptons. There are six types of leptons: • Electron ( e − ) - this particle carries a negative electric charge, and is most commonly found orbiting an atom. They have a very small mass, and as a result they are often thought of as fields of probability orbiting an atom. The electron is the least massive of any charged particle. The electron is produced in some forms of radioactivity. • Muon ( μ − ) - the muon is almost exactly the same as an electron, except it is more massive. Muons are unstable particles. Antimuons can (rarely) pair with an ele...

Fact of the day: There are six 'colours' of quark. Quantum Chromodynamics is the study of quarks and how they interact. As far as we know, quarks are fundamental particles, this means that no other particles make up quarks. There are six colours of quark (in quantum chromodynamics [chromo meaning colour] different types of quarks are called colours). There are the up quarks, the down quarks, the charm quarks, the strange quarks, the top quarks, and the bottom quarks. The up and down quarks make up protons and neutrons. There are also antimatter counterparts for all of these colours of quarks. (above) The section of quarks on the Standard Model Of Elementary Particles. Each quark has an electrical charge. The up, charm, and the top quarks (known as the up-type quarks) have an electrical charge of   +   2 ⁄ 3 . The down, strange, and bottom quarks (down-type quarks) have an electrical charge of  −   1 ⁄ 3 . This is why protons have a positive charge (protons ...

Fact of the day: 1.6749 x 10^-27 Kg  - the weight of neutron. (above) The composition of a neutron. There are two types of hadron particles: baryons and mesons. Hadrons are particles that are made up of quarks. Baryons are particles that are made up of three quarks, such as protons and neutrons (there are other types but the other types are extremely rare). A proton is a positively charged particle, made up of two up quarks and a down quark. A neutron is a neutral particle (it has no electric charge) and is made up of one up quark and two down quarks. The proton and the neutron are the particles that make up an atomic nucleus. Mesons are particles that are made up of one quark and one antiquark. These particles are very unstable, and they only last for only hundredths of a microsecond. An example of a meson in a pion, which is described in my post 'There Are Six Types Of Quark'. There are also antiquarks, which make up antimatter (along with anti leptons), li...