Monday, February 18, 2013

FORCES


Gravitational Force
The gravitational force is the force of mutual attraction between any two objects by virtue of their masses. It is a universal force. Every object experiences this force due to every other object in the universe.


Electromagnetic Force
Electromagnetic force is the force between charged particles. In the simpler case when charges are at rest, the force is given by Coulomb’s law : attractive for unlike charges and repulsive for like charges. Charges in motion produce magnetic effects and a magnetic field gives rise to a force on a moving charge.


Strong Nuclear Force
The strong nuclear force binds protons and neutrons in a nucleus. It is evident that without some attractive force, a nucleus will be unstable due to the electric repulsion between its protons. This attractive force cannot be gravitational since force of gravity is negligible compared to the electric force.


Weak Nuclear Force
The weak nuclear force appears only in certain nuclear processes such as the β-decay of a nucleus. In β-decay, the nucleus emits an electron and an uncharged particle called neutrino. The weak nuclear force is not as weak as the gravitational force, but much weaker than the strong nuclear and electromagnetic forces.