- #1
kmarinas86
- 979
- 1
I've heard things from lineraly rising potential to linearly rising force. Since the change is over distance... which is it? If dF/dx is constant, then energy, being the product of force times distance, would increase at twice the exponential. That would mean that potential does not rise linearly with distance, assuming that there is only one correct definition of potential (which I think probably isn't the case).
I just found a Wikipedia article which makes this apparent contradiction more visible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_confinement
I see this problem in many places, even among university material, not just Wikipedia. Can anyone solve this condundrum?
I just found a Wikipedia article which makes this apparent contradiction more visible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_confinement
Wikipedia said:Colour confinement (often just confinement) is the physics phenomenon that colour charged particles (such as quarks) cannot be isolated. The quarks are confined with other quarks by the strong interaction to form pairs or triplets so that the net colour is neutral. The force between quarks increases as the distance between them increases, so no quarks can be found individually.
The reasons for quark confinement are somewhat complicated; there is no analytic proof that quantum chromodynamics should be confining, but intuitively confinement is due to the force-carrying gluons having colour charge. As two electrically-charged particles separate, the electric fields between them diminish quickly, allowing electrons to become unbound from nuclei. However, as two quarks separate, the gluon fields form narrow tubes (or strings) of colour charge. Thus the force experienced by the quark remains constant regardless of its distance from the other quark. Since energy goes as force times distance, the total energy increases linearly with distance.
I see this problem in many places, even among university material, not just Wikipedia. Can anyone solve this condundrum?