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hurricane89
- 19
- 0
if you took plain neutrons, and put them in a bottle would a bottle full of neutrons weigh less than a bottle of bear protons with no electrons arround?
Bob S said:Thermal neutrons, which are not sensitive to the Coulomb forces in atoms or to the Pauli exclusion principle (except inside nuclei), will diffuse through the bottle walls until they are captured by nuclei that usually go through (n,gamma) reactions. Sometimes they go through (n,alpha) reactions like neutron capture on boron-10. Protons, which are repelled by other other protons or by nuclei, will stop in the bottle walls and capture electrons from the other nuclei. Hydrogen atoms, being small, can diffuse into the bottle walls (or back into the gas as hydrogen) and cause hydrogen embrittlement, especially in steels. This is a concern in the development of the hydrogen economy. To get a sense of the density of a proton gas, it is now possible to buy capacitors that hold a Coulomb of (electron) charge. But a mole (gram molecular weight) of protons contains 96,000 Coulombs of charge.
alxm said:Why would the neutrons stay in the bottle?
Neutron matter is a hypothetical state of matter composed of densely packed neutrons. It is considered to be one of the most dense forms of matter in the universe.
The density of neutron matter is typically measured in units of mass per volume, such as grams per cubic centimeter. It can also be expressed in terms of the number of neutrons per unit volume.
Neutron matter is incredibly dense, with estimates ranging from 10^17 grams per cubic centimeter to 10^18 grams per cubic centimeter. This is significantly denser than the density of atomic nuclei, which is around 10^14 grams per cubic centimeter.
No, neutron matter is not found naturally on Earth. It is thought to exist in the core of neutron stars, which are extremely dense and massive objects that form after the collapse of a supernova.
Understanding the density of neutron matter can provide insights into the behavior and properties of neutron stars, which are important objects in astrophysics. It can also help scientists better understand the fundamental forces and interactions at work in the universe.