I’m trying to simply things in dummy terms so I remember it easier rather than memorizing a definition I want to understand it on a basic level. A Neutron is an uncharged elementary particle that equals a protons mass in a nucleus this stabilizing it, I also know that in an atom there has to be equal amounts of neutrons and protons, and that the neutrons act as a sort of binder, so what sort of analogy or explanation could be used to describe it? Does a Neutron sort of act like the Mortar for a Brick Structure? Or like the glue that keeps protons from falling apart?
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I think the mortar analogy is pretty good. Ultimately what you are asking is “what increases the chance that the nucleus will stay together forever, vs break apart” The word for atoms that break apart is “radioactive”.
All larger atoms are made inside mostly dying stars. As the atoms are forming, you can imagine all sorts of combinations of protons and neutrons being formed a billion times a second. The more stable combinations last longer. Some might only last for a millionth of a second, others for a minute. But in that stellar furnace, eventually the stable combinations are all that is left. And those are the atoms with roughly even numbers of protons and neutrons for smaller sized atoms. As they get bigger, the number of neutrons seems climbs until even then, all the atoms are all radioactive and break apart.
As for why neutrons help, I think the fact that they have no charge helps ease the strain of the protons being so close together. But neutrons themselves cannot exist outside the nucleus. They themselves are unstable. So at some point, you have too much mortar. The mortar wants to crack apart.
>A Neutron is an uncharged elementary particle
This is false. Neutrons are made of quarks, which are elementary particles. It’s not an important detail when understanding atoms.
> I also know that in an atom there has to be equal amounts of neutrons and protons
Also false. Some lighter elements may have equal numbers, but it’s not always necessary, and heavier ones will have more neutrons than protons to remain stable.
>so what sort of analogy or explanation could be used to describe it
The protons and neutrons are a bunch of balls covered in glue, and the protons are magnets, but are weird in that they can only repel other magnets. The glue represents the Strong Nuclear Force. It’s a very short range force, so it only acts between adjacent particles. Like glue. The strong force acts between protons as well, so that’s why I’m talking about balls covered in glue instead of the neutrons simply being the glue.
There’s even a particle called a gluon which is related to the strong force, and its name comes from the glue analogy.
You’ve got a group of 5 kids in a classroom. 3 of them think they’re really cool. The other two kids are pretty chill.
Everyone gets on well with each of the chill kids because, well, they’re chill. Sit anyone beside a chill kid and they’ll sit and have a chat.
But the cool kids are two similar. Sit two of them together and they’ll just end up being disruptive because their personalities clash and they just want to one-up each other.
So, you alternate between cool and chill. This means each pair of consecutive kids has a weak link between each other, *and* the chill kids act like a buffer zone to prevent the stronger repulsive interaction between the cool kids.
If you’ve got a much bigger class, you might need extra buffer kids because 1-to-1 might not be enough. And if there are enough cool kids, it doesn’t matter how many chill kids there are. It’s only a matter of time before a fight breaks out.
Protons and neutrons stick together (because of the strong nuclear force). But protons push against each other as well because of their electric charge. They can’t push on neutrons tho because neutrons don’t have charge.
So if you have a neutron stuck to a proton, you can stick a proton to the pair and it’s more likely to stay stuck, because the neutron cuts the “charge per particle) is lower.
On the other side, though, is that, without charge, neutrons are only slightly sticky and they are less sticky with neutrons than protons. So they can pop apart pretty easily when they’re stuck to other neutrons. But since they stick to protons better than other neutrons when there’s a couple of protons around, they can clump better.
So there’s a balance between protons and neutrons in a nucleus. Too many protons and the “charge per particle” gets too high to be stable, but too many neutrons and it can’t hold together and breaks into parts. Enough of each and you get a stable nucleus.
Lots of good explanations here, but I think I have a good analogy. Obligatory only have first year uni physics, so not an expert (that and watched a load of PBS space time videos).
Imagine you have a gymnasium. You also have a bunch of people, some wearing green, some wearing grey. The green shirts are protons and grey are neutrons.
When you make an atom, you take some resistance bands and wrap them around each pair of people. The bands are the nuclear force, a very strong pull up to the point that the band breaks. The pull goes to zero after it breaks, and the person flies off to go where they want. Probably for ice cream.
The green shirts really like pushing each other. So you have a lot of bands, but multiple green shirts push each other and can push to where the bands break. Neutrons aren’t into the pushing game. They just stand the with the bands around them and hang out. The neutrons have anger problems, and the protons are afraid to push them because they’ll get beat up. (Okay, ascribing motive to the protons not pushing on neutrons is a stretch, but it helps the analogy).
So, the neutrons add extra force bands to hold things together. They also act as a barrier to keep the protons from pushing each other too much.
Hopefully, that all makes sense and also isn’t an oversimplification.
There are many good explanations, but let’s really try to do it like ELI5.
Imagine you have red balloons, protons, and blue balloons, neutrons. The red balloons have static charge on them and push away from each other, that is the electromagnetic force. All of the balloons have a string tied to the bottom and they are tied together (strong nuclear force).
If there were only red balloons, the static charge would break the strings and the balloons would fly apart. If you add some blue balloons, the added strength of the additional strings keep them all together. A few more or less blue balloons than red balloons is fine, but in general the strings are happy when you’re in the same ballpark.
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