Nuclear Physics

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  • Nuclear Physics
    • The Atom
      • Rutherford's Atom
        • Experiment which involved firing a beam of alpha particles at gold foil - alpha particle scattering
        • Experiment showed most alpha particles were absorbed but some were reflected back
        • Lead to the realisation that there is a poitively charrged nucleus surrounded by negatively charged particles. Most of an atom consists of empty space.
      • Known Structure of an atom
        • the nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons
          • Protons and neutrons together are called nucleons. The nucleon number is the total amount of protons and neutrons in an atomls nucleus.
          • Proton number represents the number of protons/electrons in an atom
        • Electrons move around the nucleus in clouds
        • Most of the atom is made up of empty space
      • Isotopes
        • An atom of the same element with different numbers of neutrons, and same number of protons/electrons.
      • Fundamental Particles
        • Protons and neutrons arent fundamental particles - they're made up of Quarks
        • Hadrons - affected by the strong nuclear force
        • Leptons - unaffected by the strong nuclear force
        • Quarks can be up, down,  strange, bottom, top or charm.
        • In hadron interactions, the quantites of charge, baryon numver, strangeness, charm bottomness and topness are all conserved
    • Nuclear Power
      • Nuclear Reactions
        • Quantites of proton number, mass-energy and nucleon number are all conserved
        • Fission
          • Occurs in stars- high energy and pressures are needed.
          • Untitled
        • Fusion
          • In induced nuclear fusion, a heavy nucleus absorbs a neutron and splits into two lighter fragments and a fast moving neutron

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